A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio 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.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, 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.
