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An activist organization has stated to have scraped a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them online.

Possible Boost for AI Development

Industry experts said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.

An entity known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.

“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Archive's Stated Mission and Concerns

Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

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

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

AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground

A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the leaked music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.

“Educating models on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.

The group's website makes references to LibGen, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.

The co-founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.

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

Policy Considerations and Reactions

In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.

A government minister for science, innovation and technology informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.