An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said 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 Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed 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 policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
