A digital rights organization has stated to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Possible Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for material to train their technology.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Archive's Declared Mission and Worries
Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 accounted for 99.6% of all music listened 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 start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its AI models.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright 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 protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
