A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing 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 Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
