A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms 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 associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
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 posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
