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A digital rights group has stated to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.

Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training

Industry experts noted the apparent leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for material to train their models.

An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory.

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

The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM protections.

Archive's Declared Mission and Worries

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

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

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

AI Training and Intellectual Property Debate

A composer and campaigner for protecting artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be utilized for developing AI models.

“Training on illegally sourced material is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to end up instructing AI models,” he said.

The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.

A founder of an AI startup posted on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also enable tech companies to “train on modern music at a large volume”.

Copyright has emerged as a key issue between artists, authors and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.

Government Considerations and Responses

In the UK, creative professionals have raised concerns against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.

A government minister for science, research and technology 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 pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.