An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging 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 frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
