A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
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, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
