An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners 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 fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A 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”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little 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.
