An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
