An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users 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 fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
