Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Scraped Millions of Music Tracks from Spotify
An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
