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An activist group has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.

Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training

Observers noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to develop their technology.

A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.

“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM protections.

Archive's Declared Goal and Concerns

Spotify does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.

“Naturally the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information 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 artificial intelligence systems.

“Educating models on pirated material is sadly common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.

The co-founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on contemporary music at scale”.

Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other.

Government Proposals and Responses

Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.

The secretary of state for science, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.