A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent leak could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers 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 let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
