An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired 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 audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
