An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify 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, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
