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

Potential Boost for AI Training

Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.

An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.

“We have located and disabled the nefarious 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 unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Group's Stated Mission and Worries

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

The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.

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

AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.

“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.

The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.

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

Government Considerations and Reactions

In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.

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