An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission 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 offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.