A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
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 pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding 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.
