A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data 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 “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
