A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released 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.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data 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 frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
