A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, 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.
