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An activist group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them online.

Possible Impetus for AI Training

Industry experts said the apparent data breach could boost AI companies looking for data to train their technology.

A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.

“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an inquiry into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.

Group's Stated Mission and Worries

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

The group asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of exchanging large digital files online.

“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.

Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for developing artificial intelligence systems.

“Educating models on pirated material 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 alludes to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.

The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “create their own private free version of the service”. The executive added it could also enable tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”.

Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and AI companies on the other.

Government Proposals and Reactions

In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Almost every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ apprehensions.

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