🔗 Share this article

An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.

Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development

Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.

An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.

“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.

Archive's Stated Mission and Worries

Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.

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

AI Training and Copyright Debate

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for training AI models.

“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.

The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.

Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.

Government Proposals and Reactions

Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.

A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.