An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Mission and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
