A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
