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A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.

Possible Boost for AI Development

Observers said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their technology.

A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.

“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].

Group's Stated Goal and Concerns

The streaming service 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, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.

“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.

AI Training and Copyright Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.

“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.

The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its AI models.

The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.

Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers 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 ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.