An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used 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 theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
