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An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.

Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training

Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models.

An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.

“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.

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

Group's Stated Mission and Concerns

Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.

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

Model Development and Copyright Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.

“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.

The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train 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 private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”.

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

Government Proposals and Responses

Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.

A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.