Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Extracted Millions of Music Files from the Streaming Giant
An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data 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 heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
