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An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.

Possible Boost for AI Training

Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their technology.

An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.

“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative.

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.

Archive's Stated Goal and Worries

Spotify does not believe the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

They asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.

“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.

Model Development and Copyright Debate

A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.

“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.

The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.

Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.

Policy Considerations and Responses

Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.

A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.