An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission 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 development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, 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.
