Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Files from Spotify
A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service 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 heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
