🔗 Share this article Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Extracted Millions of Music Tracks from the Streaming Giant An activist organization has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online. Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their models. A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory. “We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative. The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management]. Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music. The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online. “Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”. Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models. “Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated. The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems. The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”. Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other. Policy Considerations and Responses Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns. The secretary of state for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.