Activist Collective Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Music Tracks from the Streaming Giant

An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.

Possible Impetus for AI Development

Observers said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their technology.

A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.

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

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Group's Declared Goal and Worries

Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

They claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.

“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.

AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground

A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems.

“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing 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 individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.

Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.

Policy Considerations and Reactions

Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.

A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting 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.