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An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online.

Possible Boost for AI Development

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

A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak 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 unauthorised access found a third party scraped public metadata and used questionable tactics to bypass DRM protections.

Group's Stated Mission and Concerns

The streaming service does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized 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 streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of exchanging large data files online.

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

Model Development and Copyright Debate

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

“Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he stated.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.

A founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on LinkedIn that members of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of the service”. He added it could also enable technology firms to “train on modern music at scale”.

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

Government Considerations and Responses

Across Britain, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies use copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artists’ concerns.

A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, 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.