A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
