A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging 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 frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
