An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
