🔗 Share this article Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Extracted Countless of Music Files from Spotify A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online. Possible Boost for AI Development Observers said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models. A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, 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 were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson. The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management]. Group's Stated Goal 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 known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music. The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online. “Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”. Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems. “Training on pirated material is unfortunately common 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 vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models. The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at scale”. Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other. Policy Considerations and Responses Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions. The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.