A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released 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.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-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 the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, 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 next year.
