An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, 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.
