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An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly.

Potential Impetus for AI Development

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

A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.

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

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

Group's Stated Mission and Worries

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, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.

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

AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground

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

“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.

The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.

Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.

Policy Considerations and Responses

In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.

A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.