An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
