đ Share this article Activist Group Asserts to Have Scraped Countless of Audio Files from the Streaming Giant A digital rights group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to publish them online. Potential Impetus for AI Training Industry experts said the apparent leak could aid AI companies searching for data to train their technology. An entity called Annaâs Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of metadata such as performer and album names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its entire inventory. âWe have identified and deactivated the nefarious user accounts that were involved in illegal scraping,â stated a Spotify representative. The Swedish company, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, further explained that an investigation into unauthorized access found a third party collected public metadata and employed questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management]. Group's Stated Mission and Worries Spotify does not think the audio taken by Annaâs Archive has been released yet. Annaâs Archive, which is known for offering links to copyright-infringing books, wrote in a blog it wanted to create a âhistorical repositoryâ for music. The group claimed the music files represented 99.6% of all music listened to by its listeners and would be shared via âpeer-to-peer networksâ, a method of sharing large data files online. âNaturally the service doesnât have all the music in the world, but itâs a fantastic beginning,â commented Annaâs Archive, which frames its mission as âpreserving humanityâs information and cultureâ. AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground Ed Newton-Rex for defending artistsâ rights, said the leaked music would likely be used for training artificial intelligence systems. âEducating models on pirated data is unfortunately common in the tech sector, so this stolen music is almost certain to be used instructing AI models,â he stated. The Annaâs Archive site alludes to a large online archive, a huge online archive of copyrighted books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models. A 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. The executive added it could also enable technology firms to âtrain on modern music at scaleâ. Copyright has become a battleground between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and AI companies on the other. Policy Considerations and Reactions Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to let AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the owner opts out. Virtually every participant to a government consultation on the proposal has supported artistsâ concerns. A government minister for science, research and development informed parliament this month there was âlittle consensusâ on the issue, adding that ministers would âuse the time to get this correctâ. The government has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.