A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
