A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed 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 made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group 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 sharing large digital files online.
“Of course 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 “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research 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 policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
