A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
