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An activist group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.

Potential Boost for AI Training

Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models.

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

“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company spokesperson.

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Archive's Stated Goal and Worries

The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means 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 purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and heritage”.

Model Development and Copyright Debate

A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for developing AI models.

“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he stated.

The group's website alludes to LibGen, 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 wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.

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

Government Proposals and Reactions

Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.

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