🔗 Share this article Activist Collective Claims to Have Scraped Millions of Audio Files from the Streaming Giant 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. Potential Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies looking for material to develop their models. A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory. “We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson. The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections. Archive's Stated Goal and Worries The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to pirated books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music. They asserted the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online. “Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic beginning,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and culture”. AI Training and Copyright Debate Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, remarked the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems. “Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said. The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models. The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”. Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other. Government Considerations and Reactions Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns. A government minister for science, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.