An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed 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 pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
