A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately 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 vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
