An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said 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 Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting 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.
