Activist Group Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant

An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.

Potential Boost for AI Training

Industry experts said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.

A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the leak did not represent its full inventory.

“We have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” stated a Spotify spokesperson.

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Archive's Stated Goal and Worries

The streaming service does not believe the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging 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 heritage”.

AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate

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

“Training on illegally sourced material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.

The group's website alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by Meta to train its systems.

A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.

Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.

Policy Considerations and Reactions

In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little 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.