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Spotify Probes Anna’s Archive’s Massive Scrape as Torrents Roll Out

The company says it disabled accounts tied to unlawful scraping, adding new safeguards.

Overview

  • Anna’s Archive claims to have copied about 86 million audio files and 256 million rows of track metadata—nearly 300TB—covering roughly 99.6% of Spotify listening activity.
  • The group has released the metadata publicly and is distributing the music in staged, popularity‑based torrents that are already circulating on peer‑to‑peer networks.
  • Spotify confirms public metadata was scraped and says illicit tactics were used to bypass DRM to access some audio files, with the full scope still under investigation.
  • The company says it identified and disabled the accounts involved, implemented new safeguards, and is actively monitoring for suspicious behavior.
  • Experts warn the dataset could enable DIY streaming clones or large‑scale training of music‑generation AI, and note that enforcement may not halt torrents already being seeded.