An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken 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.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared 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 great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
