A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
