A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Stated Goal and Worries
Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted 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 digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Battleground
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
