A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved 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 identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
