A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train 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. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared 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 beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
