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A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online.

Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development

Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.

A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full catalog.

“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company representative.

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM protections.

Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns

Spotify does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

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

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

Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate

A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.

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

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.

The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.

Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.

Government Considerations and Reactions

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

A government minister for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.