A digital rights organization has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from Spotify and is preparing to publish them online.
Observers said the seeming leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their technology.
A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not constitute its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the malicious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” stated a Spotify representative.
The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
The streaming service does not think 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 ‘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 ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.
“Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which frames its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and heritage”.
A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on the professional network that members of the public could in theory “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.
Intellectual property law has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
In the UK, creative professionals have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and technology told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.
A tech journalist with over a decade of experience covering emerging technologies and digital innovation across global markets.
