A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired 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 asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users 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 fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant 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 “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
