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An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them publicly.

Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development

Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.

A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.

“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.

The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.

Group's Stated Goal and Concerns

The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

They claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.

“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.

Model Development and Copyright Battleground

A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.

“Educating models on pirated data is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.

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

A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.

Intellectual property law has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives 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 allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.

The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.