An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 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 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 “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
