Advocacy Group Claims to Have Scraped Millions of Music Tracks from Spotify
A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
