A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
