A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
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 pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
