A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio 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.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, 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 describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
