An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models 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.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
