A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital 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 purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
