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A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.

Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development

Industry experts noted the seeming leak could boost AI companies searching for data to train their technology.

A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not constitute its entire inventory.

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

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].

Group's Declared Goal and Worries

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

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

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

Model Development and Intellectual Property Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would likely be used for developing AI models.

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

The Anna’s Archive site makes references to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its systems.

A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of Spotify”. The executive added it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at scale”.

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

Policy Considerations and Reactions

Across Britain, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Almost every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.

The secretary of state for science, innovation and development informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, adding that ministers would “take the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.