Activist Group Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from Spotify
An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development
Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
“We have located and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.
The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Declared Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released 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.
The group asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
AI Training and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training AI models.
“Educating models on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own personal free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Reactions
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
