A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A 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”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
