Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant
An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread 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 LibGen, a huge 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 AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, 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.
