An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, 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.
