A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
