A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed 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 committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
