A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album 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 engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes 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.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development 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.
