A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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 purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research 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 pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
