An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
