An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
