A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, 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 regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
