A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify 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, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
