A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told 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 committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
