An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
