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A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.

Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development

Observers noted the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.

A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire catalog.

“We have identified and disabled the malicious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.

Group's Declared Goal and Concerns

The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

They claimed 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 means of exchanging large data files online.

“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.

AI Training and Copyright Battleground

A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.

“Educating models on pirated material is sadly widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up training AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by Meta to develop its AI models.

The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive said it could also enable tech companies to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.

Intellectual property law has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.

Government Proposals and Responses

Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.

The secretary of state for science, research 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 pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.