An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
