An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
