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An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them publicly.

Potential Boost for AI Development

Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models.

A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its full inventory.

“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.

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

Group's Declared Mission and Concerns

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

They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.

“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.

Model Development and Copyright Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.

“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.

A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.

Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.

Government Proposals and Reactions

In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.

A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.