A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.