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 online.
Possible Boost for AI Training
Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.
“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. 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 creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Policy Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
