An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
