An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
