Activist Collective Asserts to Have Extracted Millions of Music Tracks from the Streaming Giant
An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
