A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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.
They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-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 tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
