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 Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course 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 information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
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 AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
