A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
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 copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course 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 knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives 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 allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
