🔗 Share this article

An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.

Possible Boost for AI Training

Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.

An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.

“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.

The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Group's Stated Goal and Worries

Spotify does not think the music acquired 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.

The group asserted the music files accounted for 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.

“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.

AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.

“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.

The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.

A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.

Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.

Policy Proposals and Responses

Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for technology, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.