A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken 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.
They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.
A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
