A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission 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 utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal 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 artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding 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.
