A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
