🔗 Share this article Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Scraped Millions of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly. Possible Boost for AI Development Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models. A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog. “We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative. The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections. Archive's Declared Goal and Worries The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music. The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data 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 purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”. Model Development and Copyright Debate A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models. “Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately 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 makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems. The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”. Copyright has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other. Policy Considerations and Reactions In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions. The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.