A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said 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 its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, 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 start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-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”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
