Advocacy Group Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Files from Spotify
An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging 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 describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes 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 artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
