A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group 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 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 describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
