An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
