A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said 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 constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally 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 heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
