🔗 Share this article Advocacy Group Asserts to Have Extracted Countless of Audio Tracks from the Streaming Giant A digital rights group has stated to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them publicly. Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training Industry experts said the seeming data breach could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their technology. A group called Anna’s Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not represent its entire catalog. “We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative. The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used illicit methods to circumvent DRM protections. Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns Spotify does not think the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for providing links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music. The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘torrents’, a method of exchanging 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 purpose as “preserving humanity’s information and culture”. AI Training and Copyright Battleground A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the breached music would probably be used for developing artificial intelligence systems. “Educating models on pirated data is unfortunately widespread in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he stated. The group's website makes references to a large online archive, a vast online repository of copyrighted books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems. The co-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”. The executive said it could also allow tech companies to “train on contemporary music at a large volume”. Copyright has emerged as a battleground between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other. Government Considerations and Reactions Across Britain, creative professionals have protested against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the idea has supported artists’ apprehensions. The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.