An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released 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 asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion 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 backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
