An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach 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 the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting 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.
