A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service 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 information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
