An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, 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 AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
