Advocacy Collective Claims to Have Extracted Millions of Music Files from Spotify
An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, 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 beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
