A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken 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.
The group claimed the music files represented 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 Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
