An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally 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 “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies 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 protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
