A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
