A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak 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 company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, 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,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used 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 instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
