Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Extracted Countless of Music Tracks from Spotify

An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.

Potential Impetus for AI Training

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

A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.

“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a company representative.

The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].

Archive's Stated Goal and Worries

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

The group asserted 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 sharing large data files online.

“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.

AI Training and Copyright Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.

“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive 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 wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.

Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.

Policy Considerations and Reactions

In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.