Advocacy Collective Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Music Files from Spotify

An activist group has claimed to have scraped a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.

Possible Impetus for AI Development

Observers noted the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms looking for material to develop their technology.

A group known as Anna’s Archive reported it had scraped 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million rows of metadata such as performer and album names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its full inventory.

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

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit tactics to bypass DRM protections.

Archive's Declared Goal and Worries

The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared 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 fantastic start,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.

AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground

A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ rights, said the breached music would probably be used for training artificial intelligence systems.

“Training on pirated data is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is almost certain to end up instructing AI models,” he said.

The Anna’s Archive site alludes to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to train its systems.

The co-founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “create their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.

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

Government Considerations and Responses

In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial suggestion to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artists’ concerns.

A government minister for science, research and technology told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.