An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting 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.
