A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital 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 mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository 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 posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
