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A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.

Possible Boost for AI Development

Industry experts noted the seeming leak could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their technology.

A group called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its entire inventory.

“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company representative.

The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].

Group's Stated Mission and Concerns

Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

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

“Of course Spotify 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 Intellectual Property Debate

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

“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,” he stated.

The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.

A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free equivalent of Spotify”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.

Copyright has emerged as a key issue between creatives, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.

Government Considerations and Reactions

In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.

The secretary of state for science, innovation and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.