An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
