A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries 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 identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared 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 pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 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.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used 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 be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
