🔗 Share this article

An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.

Possible Boost for AI Training

Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.

A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.

“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.

The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Group's Declared Goal and Concerns

The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.

“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.

Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate

Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.

“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.

A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.

Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.

Government Proposals and Reactions

In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.