A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said 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 its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
