A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, 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 correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
