A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken 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.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
