An activist group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.
Potential Boost for AI Training
Observers noted the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire catalog.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.
Group's Declared 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 known for offering links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
Model Development and Copyright Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.
The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its systems.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology 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 pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
