A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train 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.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
