🔗 Share this article Advocacy Collective Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from Spotify An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online. Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their models. A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog. “We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify representative. The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management]. Group's Stated Mission and Concerns Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music. The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online. “Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”. Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing AI models. “Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said. The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems. A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”. Intellectual property law has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other. Policy Proposals and Reactions In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions. The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.