An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe 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 music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
