A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
