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Photo Credit: Stefan Steinbauer<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Music Amid a push to cement its place as an AI pioneer, chip-making giant NVIDIA is accused of training AI on the controversial \u201cshadow library\u201d Anna\u2019s Archive.<\/h2>\n
Despite securing a deal<\/a> with Universal Music Group (UMG) earlier this month to cement its place as a \u201cresponsible AI\u201d partner, chip-making giant NVIDIA has been accused of training its AI on data scraped by Anna\u2019s Archive, the so-called notorious pirate website.<\/p>\n On Friday, a class action lawsuit filed against NVIDIA back in 2024 by several authors who claimed the company\u2019s AI models were illegally trained on their works was amended<\/a>, vastly expanding the scope of the litigation. The amended lawsuit now includes more books, authors, and infringing AI models, as well as claims involving the controversial \u201cshadow library\u201d Anna\u2019s Archive.<\/p>\n \u201cDesperate for books, NVIDIA contacted Anna\u2019s Archive\u2014the largest and most brazen of the remaining shadow libraries\u2014about acquiring its millions of pirated materials and \u2018including Anna\u2019s Archive in pre-training data for our LLMs\u2019,\u201d the filing reads. \u201cBecause Anna\u2019s Archive charged tens of thousands of dollars for \u2018high-speed access\u2019 to its pirated collections [\u2026] NVIDIA sought to find out what \u2018high-speed access\u2019 to the data would look like.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWithin a week of contacting Anna\u2019s Archive, and days after being warned by Anna\u2019s Archive of the illegal nature of their collections, NVIDIA management gave \u2018the green light\u2019 to proceed with the piracy. Anna\u2019s Archive offered NVIDIA millions of pirated copyrighted books,\u201d the complaint continues, stating that Anna\u2019s Archive promised to provide the company with around 500 terabytes of pirated data.<\/p>\n And all of that comes just weeks after UMG announced a partnership with NVIDIA to \u201cpioneer responsible AI for music discovery, creation, and engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n Presumably, UMG had no idea NVIDIA may not have sourced its data ethically, but now the company stands between a rock and a hard place if it wants to ensure its offerings aren\u2019t trained on or derived from pirated works. Whether UMG will call off its collaboration with the chip maker remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\nDamningly, the authors cite several internal NVIDIA emails<\/a> and documents which suggest that the company knowingly downloaded millions of copyrighted works to train its AI models. The documents even suggest that the company collaborated with Anna\u2019s Archive deliberately to acquire those works\u2014despite Anna\u2019s Archive allegedly warning NVIDIA that its library was illegally acquired.<\/h4>\n
While Anna\u2019s Archive isn\u2019t the only pirated source NVIDIA has been accused of utilizing, it\u2019s relevant given that Anna\u2019s Archive is being sued by Spotify and the major labels<\/a>\u2014including UMG. The online library announced<\/a> late last year that it had \u201carchived around 86 million music files,\u201d or around 99.6% of listens, from Spotify. The DSP and the labels wasted no time slapping Anna\u2019s Archive with a lawsuit and injunction.<\/h4>\n