A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
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 copyright-infringing 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 distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. 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, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
