A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken 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.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
