An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
