An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data 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 culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
