An activist organization has claimed to have harvested 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 apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread 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 huge online archive of copyrighted 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 posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, 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 government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
