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

Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Training

Observers said the apparent data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to develop their technology.

An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.

“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.

The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.

Archive's Stated Mission and Worries

Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

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

“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.

Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.

“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.

The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.

The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.

Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.

Government Proposals and Responses

Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.