An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio 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 Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
