An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
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 copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data 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 purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
