A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
