A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
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 providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers 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 ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed 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.
