Advocacy Group Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Music 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 getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service 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 represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
