An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify 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”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
