A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared 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 known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train 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 Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research 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 administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
