Piracy activist group Anna Archive says it has deleted Spotify’s entire music library, and plans to release it via torrent.
Spotify contains approximately 256 million tracks, and Anna’s Archive collection includes metadata for an estimated 99.9% of them. The group stored approximately 86 million music files, approximately 99.6% of all listeners, with a total size of approximately 300 terabytes. So far, only metadata has been released, no actual music.
“This is our humble attempt to start such a ‘preservation archive’ for Spotify scrap music,” the group wrote in one. blog post“Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,”
Spotify told TechCrunch that it has identified and disabled the user accounts involved in the scraping.
“We have implemented new security measures to address these types of anti-copyright attacks and are actively monitoring suspicious behavior,” a Spotify spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “From day one, we have stood with the artist community against piracy, and we are actively working with our industry partners to protect creators and defend their rights.”
The Anna Archive says it generally focuses on text, like books and papers, but that its mission “to preserve humanity’s knowledge and culture does not differentiate between media types.”
