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A digital rights organization has stated to have harvested a vast number of songs from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.

Possible Boost for Artificial Intelligence Development

Industry experts said the seeming data breach could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for data to train their models.

A group known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 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 songs, confirmed that the leak did not constitute its entire inventory.

“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a company spokesperson.

The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an inquiry into unauthorized access identified a external actor scraped public metadata and used questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].

Archive's Stated Goal 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 ‘preservation archive’ for music.

The group asserted the music files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be distributed via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a method of sharing large digital files online.

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

Model Development and Copyright Debate

A composer and campaigner for defending artists’ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for developing artificial intelligence systems.

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

The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online repository of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its systems.

The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company wrote on the professional network that individuals of the public could in theory “build their own private free equivalent of the service”. The executive said it could also enable technology firms to “educate models on modern music at a large volume”.

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

Policy Considerations and Responses

In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a government suggestion to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the idea has supported artists’ concerns.

A government minister for technology, research and technology informed parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the matter, noting that ministers would “take the time to get this correct”. The government has committed to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by next year.