An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said 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 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,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material 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 repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.