A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio 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 asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
