An activist organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think 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.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data 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 “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
