An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed 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 exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
