A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
