An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated 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 offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
