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An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.

Possible Boost for AI Training

Observers noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.

An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.

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

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Group's Declared Mission and Worries

The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

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

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

AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.

“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said.

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

A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.

Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.

Policy Considerations and Reactions

In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.