A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music acquired 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.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread 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 archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
