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A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.

Possible Impetus for AI Training

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

An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.

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

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

Group's Declared Goal and Worries

Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened 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 beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”.

AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for developing AI models.

“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.

The group's website alludes 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 systems.

The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.

Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.

Policy Proposals and Responses

Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.

A government minister for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.