A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ 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 means of exchanging large data 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 purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
