Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Music Tracks from the Streaming Giant

An activist organization has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.

Possible Boost for AI Training

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

A group known as Anna’s Archive said 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 located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.

The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.

Group's Declared Mission and Worries

Spotify does not think the music taken 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 ‘historical repository’ for music.

They asserted the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of exchanging large digital files online.

“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.

Model Development and Copyright Battleground

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

“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.

A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at scale”.

Intellectual property law has become a battleground between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.

Government Proposals and Reactions

Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.

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