A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.
Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training
Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to train their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.
Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns
The streaming service does not believe the audio acquired 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.
They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.
“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a huge online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to train its systems.
A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free version of Spotify”. He added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.
Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.
The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
