An activist group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital 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”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, 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 repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants 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 consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting 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.
