A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote 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 listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated 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 LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
