Activist Group Claims to Have Extracted Countless of Music Files from the Streaming Giant
A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote 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 Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.
“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
