An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based 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 circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
