A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.
“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method 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 frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.
