An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering 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 listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, 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 AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
