A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
