A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify 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, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear 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.
