🔗 Share this article

An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.

Potential Boost for AI Development

Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.

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

“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.

The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.

Group's Declared Mission and Concerns

Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing 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 frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.

AI Training and Copyright Debate

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training AI models.

“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.

A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.

Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.

Policy Proposals and Reactions

In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.

A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.