A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify 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, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio 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 sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train 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 the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
