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Title: Spotify Peeved After 10,000 Users Sold Data To Build AI Tools

Link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/0...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For millions of
Spotify users, the "Wrapped" feature -- which crunches the numbers on their
annual listening habits -- is a highlight of every year's end, ever since it
debuted in 2015. NPR once broke down exactly why our brains find the feature
so "irresistible," while Cosmopolitan last year declared that sharing Wrapped
screenshots of top artists and songs had by now become "the ultimate status
symbol" for tens of millions of music fans. It's no surprise then that, after
a decade, some Spotify users who are especially eager to see Wrapped evolve
are no longer willing to wait to see if Spotify will ever deliver the more
creative streaming insights they crave. With the help of AI, these users
expect that their data can be more quickly analyzed to potentially uncover
overlooked or never-considered patterns that could offer even more insights
into what their listening habits say about them. Imagine, for example,
accessing a music recap that encapsulates a user's full listening history --
not just their top songs and artists. With that unlocked, users could track
emotional patterns, analyzing how their music tastes reflected their moods
over time and perhaps helping them adjust their listening habits to better
cope with stress or major life events. And for users particularly intrigued
by their own data, there's even the potential to use AI to cross data streams
from different platforms and perhaps understand even more about how their
music choices impact their lives and tastes more broadly. Likely just as
appealing as gleaning deeper personal insights, though, users could also
potentially build AI tools to compare listening habits with their friends.
That could lead to nearly endless fun for the most invested music fans, where
AI could be tapped to assess all kinds of random data points, like whose
breakup playlists are more intense or who really spends the most time
listening to a shared favorite artist. In pursuit of supporting developers
offering novel insights like these, more than 18,000 Spotify users have
joined "Unwrapped," a collective launched in February that allows them to
pool and monetize their data. Voting as a group through the decentralized
data platform Vana -- which Wired profiled earlier this year -- these users
can elect to sell their dataset to developers who are building AI tools
offering fresh ways for users to analyze streaming data in ways that Spotify
likely couldn't or wouldn't. In June, the group made its first sale, with
99.5 percent of members voting yes. Vana co-founder Anna Kazlauskas told Ars
that the collective -- at the time about 10,000 members strong -- sold a
"small portion" of its data (users' artist preferences) for $55,000 to Solo
AI. While each Spotify user only earned about $5 in cryptocurrency tokens --
which Kazlauskas suggested was not "ideal," wishing the users had earned
about "a hundred times" more -- she said the deal was "meaningful" in showing
Spotify users that their data "is actually worth something." Spotify
responded to the collective by citing both trademark and policy violations.
The company sent a letter to Unwrapped developers, warning that the project's
name may infringe on Spotify's Wrapped branding, and that Unwrapped breaches
developer terms. Specifically, Spotify objects to Unwrapped's use of platform
data for AI/ML training and facilitating user data sales. "Spotify honors our
users' privacy rights, including the right of portability," Spotify's
spokesperson said. "All of our users can receive a copy of their personal
data to use as they see fit. That said, UnwrappedData.org is in violation of
our Developer Terms which prohibit the collection, aggregation, and sale of
Spotify user data to third parties." Unwrapped says it plans to defend users'
right to "access, control, and benefit from their own data," while providing
reassurances that it will "respect Spotify's position as a global music
leader."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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