A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
