Activist Group Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant

An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.

Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training

Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their models.

An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.

“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.

The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.

Group's Stated Goal and Concerns

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

They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.

“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.

Model Development and Copyright Debate

A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models.

“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.

The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.

A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.

Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.

Government Proposals and Responses

In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.