A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data 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 artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known 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 listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train 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 Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
