Activist Group Claims to Have Extracted Millions of Music Tracks from Spotify
An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development
Observers noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course the service 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 knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
