An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
