An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers noted 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 audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service 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 copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
