An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Industry experts noted the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections.
Group's Declared Goal and Worries
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 pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Proposals and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
