A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
