Pirate group Anna’s Archive says it has scraped 86 million songs from Spotify

A group of activist pirates known as Anna’s Archive has announced that it has extracted a staggering 86 million songs from Spotify, with plans to distribute the files through torrents. Spotify boasts a total of approximately 256 million tracks, and Anna’s Archive claims to have gathered metadata for nearly 99.9% of them. The group's collection, which encompasses around 86 million music files, represents about 99.6% of the total listens on the platform, amounting to nearly 300 terabytes of data. However, as of now, only the metadata has been made public, with the actual music files yet to be released. In a blog post, Anna’s Archive referred to this initiative as a modest effort to create a "preservation archive" for music, acknowledging that while Spotify doesn’t encompass every song in existence, it serves as a significant starting point. In response, Spotify has confirmed to TechCrunch that it has taken action against the accounts associated with the scraping. A spokesperson stated, "We’ve implemented new safeguards for these types of anti-copyright attacks and are actively monitoring for suspicious behavior." They emphasized their long-standing commitment to the artist community in the fight against piracy and their ongoing collaborations with industry partners to safeguard creators' rights. While Anna’s Archive typically focuses on preserving texts such as books and academic papers, the group asserts that its mission to protect humanity's cultural and knowledge heritage transcends different media types.