An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state 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 correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
