A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired 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 music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data 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 frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
