An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers 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 Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging 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 frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
