A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing 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 frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta 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 private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
