Activist Collective Asserts to Have Extracted Millions of Music Tracks from Spotify
A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
