An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group 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 record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated 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 external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-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.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
