A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
