An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record 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 Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated 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 streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, 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,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
