A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said 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 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 great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train 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 version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister 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 administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
