🔗 Share this article

An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online.

Possible Impetus for AI Training

Observers noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.

A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.

“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.

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

Archive's Declared Goal and Worries

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

The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large data files online.

“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.

Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.

“Educating models on illegally sourced data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.

The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.

The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free version of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.

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

Policy Proposals and Responses

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

A government minister for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.