A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course 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 “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
