An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
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, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
