đ Share this article Advocacy Group Claims to Have Scraped Countless of Music Tracks from the Streaming Giant A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online. Potential Boost for Artificial Intelligence Training Observers said the apparent leak could boost artificial intelligence firms looking for material to train their models. A group known as Annaâs Archive reported it had obtained 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and record names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million songs, stated that the breach did not represent its full inventory. âWe have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that were involved in unlawful scraping,â said a Spotify spokesperson. The Stockholm-based service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access found a external actor collected public metadata and employed questionable methods to circumvent DRM protections. Archive's Declared Mission and Concerns The streaming service does not think the audio taken by Annaâs Archive has been made public yet. Annaâs Archive, which is recognized for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a âhistorical repositoryâ for music. They asserted the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by Spotify users and would be distributed via âpeer-to-peer networksâ, a method of sharing large data files online. âOf course Spotify doesnât have all the music in the world, but itâs a great beginning,â commented Annaâs Archive, which frames its mission as âsafeguarding humanityâs knowledge and heritageâ. AI Training and Copyright Battleground Ed Newton-Rex for defending artistsâ copyright, said the leaked music would probably be used for training AI models. âTraining on illegally sourced data is unfortunately widespread in the AI industry, so this accessed music is highly likely to be used training AI models,â he stated. The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of copyrighted books that has reportedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models. The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory âbuild their own private free version of the serviceâ. He said it could also allow technology firms to âtrain on contemporary music at scaleâ. Copyright has become a key issue between artists, writers and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other. Government Proposals and Responses In the UK, artists and writers have raised concerns against a ministerial suggestion to let AI companies use protected work without permission unless the rights holder signals. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the idea has backed artistsâ apprehensions. The secretary of state for technology, innovation and development told parliament this month there was âlittle consensusâ on the issue, adding that ministers would âuse the time to get this correctâ. The government has committed to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by March 2025.