A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, 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 beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
