A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital 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 describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
