🔗 Share this article

A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly.

Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development

Observers said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology.

A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.

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

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.

Group's Declared Mission and Concerns

The streaming service does not believe the audio 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.

They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.

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

AI Training and Copyright Battleground

A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.

“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.

The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.

A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.

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

Policy Considerations and Responses

In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.

A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.