A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
