An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, 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 methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
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 pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
