An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote 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 the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use 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’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
