A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as 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, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
