Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Millions of Audio Tracks from Spotify
A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
