A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, 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 bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly 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 principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
