A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
