🔗 Share this article Advocacy Group Claims to Have Extracted Millions of Music Tracks from Spotify An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly. Possible Boost for AI Development Observers said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models. An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog. “We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson. The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections. Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns The streaming service does not think the audio 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 ‘historical repository’ for music. The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large data files online. “Of course 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 “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”. Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models. “Educating models on pirated data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated. The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems. A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”. Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other. Government Considerations and Responses In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns. A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.