An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio 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 accounted for 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 great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told 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.
