An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the music 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 asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. 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 artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
