A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Development
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
