An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released 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 audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
