🔗 Share this article Activist Collective Asserts to Have Extracted Countless of Music Files from Spotify An activist group has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them online. Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development Industry experts said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology. An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory. “We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a company spokesperson. The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections. Group's Declared Goal and Worries Spotify does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote 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 shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online. “Of course Spotify 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’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for developing AI models. “Educating models on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up training AI models,” he said. The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models. A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”. Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other. Government Proposals and Reactions Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns. The secretary of state for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.