🔗 Share this article Activist Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online. Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their technology. A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog. “We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative. The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections. Archive's Declared Mission and Worries Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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. The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online. “Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”. AI Training and Copyright Debate A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems. “Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said. The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems. A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”. Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other. Government Proposals and Responses In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions. A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.