A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, 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 engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal 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 offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
