A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 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 songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote 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 its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
