A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released 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 asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
