An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
