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A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.

Possible Boost for AI Training

Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their models.

A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.

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

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Group's Declared Mission and Worries

The streaming service does not think the music 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.

They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means 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 mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.

Model Development and Copyright Debate

Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for training AI models.

“Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.

The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.

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

Government Proposals and Responses

In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for science, research and development told 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 committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.