A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital 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 mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
