An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released 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.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
