A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally 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 heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
