🔗 Share this article

A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.

Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development

Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their models.

An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.

“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company representative.

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

Group's Stated Goal and Worries

The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said 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 Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online.

“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.

Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground

A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.

“Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.

The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.

A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.

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

Government Proposals and Responses

In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.

A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.