An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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 claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
