A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop 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 metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology told 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 committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
