🔗 Share this article Activist Collective Asserts to Have Extracted Countless of Audio Tracks from Spotify A digital rights group has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to release them online. Possible Boost for AI Training Observers said the seeming data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their models. An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory. “We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative. The Swedish 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 methods to circumvent DRM protections. Group's Declared Mission and Worries Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online. “Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and heritage”. AI Training and Copyright Battleground A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for training AI models. “Educating models on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said. The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its systems. A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”. Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other. Government Considerations and Responses Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns. A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.