A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
