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A digital rights group has claimed to have harvested millions of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to release them publicly.

Possible Impetus for Artificial Intelligence Development

Industry experts noted the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for data to develop their models.

An entity called Anna’s Archive said it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its full catalog.

“We have identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,” said a company spokesperson.

The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a third party collected public metadata and employed illicit methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns

Spotify does not believe the music acquired by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is recognized for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.

They claimed the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners 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 beginning,” said Anna’s Archive, which describes its purpose as “safeguarding humanity’s information and culture”.

Model Development and Intellectual Property Debate

Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ rights, remarked the breached music would likely be utilized for developing AI models.

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

The group's website alludes to LibGen, a huge online repository of pirated books that has reportedly been used by Meta to develop its AI models.

A founder of an AI startup wrote on the professional network that members of the public could in principle “build their own private free version of the service”. He said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on contemporary music at a large volume”.

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

Policy Proposals and Responses

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

A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.