A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course 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 culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
