An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data 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 frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen 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 repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
