An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported 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 carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Stated Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
