A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
