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An activist organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of songs from the popular streaming service and is preparing to publish them publicly.

Potential Impetus for AI Training

Industry experts noted the apparent leak could boost AI companies searching for data to develop their technology.

An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from the platform and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and record names. The company, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the leak did not constitute its entire catalog.

“We have located and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.

The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a external actor collected public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM protections.

Archive's Stated Mission and Worries

Spotify does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘preservation archive’ for music.

They claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by Spotify users and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a means of sharing large digital files online.

“Naturally Spotify 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 heritage”.

AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, said the leaked music would likely be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.

“Training on illegally sourced data is sadly common in the tech sector, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,” he said.

The group's website alludes to a large online archive, a huge online repository of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.

A founder of an AI startup posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. He said it could also allow technology firms to “educate models on modern music at scale”.

Intellectual property law has become a battleground between artists, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.

Government Considerations and Reactions

In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies use protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has backed artists’ apprehensions.

The secretary of state for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.