Activist Group Asserts to Have Scraped Millions of Audio Files from the Streaming Giant

A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to release them online.

Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training

Observers said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms searching for data to train their technology.

An entity called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.

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

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Archive's Stated Goal and Concerns

The streaming service does not think the audio acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public 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 accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large digital files online.

“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.

Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground

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

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

The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.

A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.

Copyright has emerged as a battleground between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.

Policy Proposals and Responses

In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without permission unless the rights holder opts out. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.

The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.