An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable 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 known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
