A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally 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 “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
