A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service 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 pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
