A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote 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 its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
