A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital 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 frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
