An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
