A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed 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 fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals 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 modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
