An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
