An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“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 stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly 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 members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
