An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated 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 shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging 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 purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told 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 policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
