Advocacy Group Claims to Have Scraped Millions of Music Tracks from Spotify
An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known 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 accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
