A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious 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 unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think 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.
They asserted the audio files represented 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 the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
