A fresh controversy has emerged around Spotify after a hacktivist group claimed it scraped nearly 300 TB of music related data from the global streaming platform. The group alleged that the data includes 86 million audio files, millions of album artworks, and metadata linked to more than 256 million music tracks.
According to the claim, the full dataset has been backed up on a platform known as Anna’s Archive, raising serious concerns across the global music industry. Experts say the issue goes far beyond a typical data breach and could have wide ranging implications for AI training, copyright enforcement, and artist royalty payments.
Anna’s Archive describes itself as an open source search engine that indexes content from shadow libraries. Until now, its focus had mainly been on books, academic papers, and research material. This is the first time Spotify has been linked to a music dataset of this scale.
Spotify claims its database now includes metadata for 256 million music tracks and over 186 million ISRC codes. ISRC is the global identifier for individual sound recordings. Anna’s Archive has described this collection as the largest publicly accessible music metadata database ever created, calling it the first fully open music preservation archive that anyone can mirror.
Music metadata includes key information such as artist, lyricist, and composer details, track and album titles, release dates, genres, licensing records, ownership data, and royalty identifiers like ISRC codes. While metadata does not always include audio, it plays a critical role in copyright control, royalty distribution, licensing, and discovery systems.
Anna’s Archive has said the metadata is already publicly available. It also claimed that audio files may be released later through torrent networks, prioritised by popularity. This statement has intensified concerns among record labels and independent artists.
In the age of AI, datasets of this size are considered highly valuable. Experts warn such data could be used to train AI systems to generate music in the style of existing artists, recreate copyrighted tracks, or mimic voices and compositions without consent or payment.
Spotify has acknowledged the claims and said it is investigating the matter. The company stated that early findings suggest a third party may have scraped publicly accessible metadata and in some cases allegedly bypassed DRM protections to access audio files. Spotify said it takes platform security seriously and will pursue legal action if wrongdoing is confirmed.
Legal experts say if the claims are proven, the impact could extend beyond Spotify, accelerating new laws to regulate AI training, enforce licensing, and protect creative ownership worldwide.
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