An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Impetus for AI Training
Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
