A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed 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.
