🔗 Share this article Activist Group Claims to Have Scraped Millions of Music Files from the Streaming Giant A digital rights group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them publicly. Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology. An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory. “We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson. The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management]. Group's Stated Goal and Concerns The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music. The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online. “Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”. AI Training and Copyright Battleground A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems. “Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said. The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems. A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”. Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other. Policy Proposals and Reactions Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions. A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.