A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
