Advocacy Collective Claims to Have Extracted Countless of Audio Files from Spotify
An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
