Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Extracted Millions of Audio Files from the Streaming Giant
An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge 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 AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
