A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
