An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
