An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
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, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common 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 archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting 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.
