Activist Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Files from the Streaming Giant
An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated 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 Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-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 scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
