As reported by Bijié Wǎng, Anna's Archive, a shadow library known for making pirated e-books and academic papers searchable, announced this weekend what may be the largest music piracy operation in history: 'We backed up Spotify.' The group claims to have scraped 86 million audio files from Spotify, representing 99.6% of the music users actually listen to. The total size is just under 300TB, distributed via bulk BT downloads. Spotify expressed strong disapproval, with a spokesperson telling Billboard that third parties had scraped public metadata and used illegal methods to bypass DRM to access some audio files. Anna's Archive claims to have 99% of the metadata for 256 million songs on Spotify, including 86 million audio files of the most-listened-to tracks. The metadata database alone contains 186 million unique ISRCs, vastly outpacing the 5 million tracks in the largest legal open music database, MusicBrainz. Popular songs are stored in lossless OGG Vorbis format (160kbps), while less popular ones are compressed to OGG Opus (75kbps) to save space. The team used Spotify's popularity metric to prioritize which songs to scrape, focusing on those with a popularity score above zero. Over 70% of Spotify's 256 million songs have a popularity score of zero, meaning they are rarely played. The top three most-played songs on Spotify are 'Die With A Smile' by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars (3.07 billion plays), 'BIRDS OF A FEATHER' by Billie Eilish (3.13 billion plays), and 'DtMF' by Bad Bunny (1.12 billion plays). These three songs alone have more plays than the combined total of 20 million to 100 million of the least-played songs. Anna's Archive describes the action as preservation rather than piracy, arguing that existing music archives focus too much on popular artists and high-quality formats, leaving obscure music vulnerable to being lost if platforms change policies or shut down. However, the group's actions have drawn increasing legal pressure, with Belgium issuing a ban and Germany's major ISPs blocking the site's main domain. Google has also removed 749 million Anna's Archive URLs from search results, accounting for 5% of all DMCA takedown requests since 2012. The audio files are currently being released in bulk via torrent, starting with the most popular tracks. Anna's Archive is asking users to help seed the files and may add individual file downloads if demand is high.
Anna's Archive Claims to Have Leaked 86M Spotify Audio Files
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Summary
Anna's Archive, a shadow library, claims to have leaked 86 million Spotify audio files, representing 99.6% of the most-listened-to music. The group says it preserved the files in lossless and compressed formats, prioritizing popular tracks. Spotify called the move a violation, citing illegal methods to bypass DRM. The leak has drawn legal pressure, with Belgium banning the site and Google removing 749 million URLs. As Countering the Financing of Terrorism efforts intensify, such large-scale data leaks could impact liquidity and crypto markets. The files are being distributed via torrent, with Anna's Archive urging users to help seed the downloads.
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