An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost 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 entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 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 fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little 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.
