A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly 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 individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
