A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.
Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Stated 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 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 streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
