An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service 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”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly common 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 a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
