An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive'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 known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally 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 “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding 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.
