An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding 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.
