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An activist organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.

Possible Impetus for AI Training

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

An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.

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

The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.

Group's Stated Mission and Concerns

Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing 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 its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging 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 frames its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.

AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate

A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.

“Training on pirated material is sadly common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.

The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.

The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.

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

Policy Considerations and Reactions

In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.