An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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 accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users 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 beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
