Activist Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Music Files from the Streaming Giant
A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly 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 principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, 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.
