A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity 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 album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
