An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio 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 music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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 beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
