An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
