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A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.

Possible Boost for AI Development

Observers noted the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.

An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.

“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.

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

Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns

The streaming service does not believe the music acquired 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.

The group claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.

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

Model Development and Copyright Battleground

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

“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he stated.

The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.

A founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.

Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.

Policy Considerations and Reactions

In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for technology, research and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.