A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service 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 Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, 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.
