A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, 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 great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting 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.
