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An activist organization has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.

Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training

Observers noted the seeming data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.

An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.

“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.

Archive's Stated Mission and Worries

Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.

“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.

Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.

“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.

The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.

A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.

Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.

Policy Proposals and Responses

In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government proposal to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.