An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“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 Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
