A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released 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 audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
