An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
