Nearly Entire Spotify Music Catalog Allegedly Pirated Into Massive 300TB Archive
Anna Archive Claims Backup of 86 Million Spotify Tracks
A major digital piracy controversy has emerged after Anna Archive, one of the world’s largest shadow libraries, claimed it has scraped and backed up a substantial portion of Spotify’s music catalog, amounting to nearly 300 terabytes of data. The archive reportedly contains around 86 million music tracks along with 256 million rows of metadata, raising serious concerns over digital rights, data security, and the future of online music preservation.
Spotify has confirmed it is actively investigating the matter.
What Is Anna Archive and What Did It Claim?
Anna Archive is widely known for hosting and linking pirated books, academic papers, and research material. In a recent blog post titled “Backing up Spotify”, the group claimed it expanded its scope beyond text-based media to music as part of what it describes as a mission to preserve “humanity’s knowledge and culture.”
According to the group:
- The archive includes approximately 99.6% of Spotify’s most-listened tracks
- The data has been distributed via bulk torrents, grouped by popularity
- The total dataset size is estimated at 300TB
- Both audio files and public metadata were allegedly captured
The group positioned the move as the world’s first fully open, mirrorable “music preservation archive.”
Spotify Responds: Investigation Underway
Spotify, headquartered in Stockholm and serving over 700 million users globally, acknowledged the incident but clarified that not its entire catalog of over 100 million tracks was compromised.
In a statement cited by Android Authority, Spotify said:
“An investigation into unauthorised access identified that a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM to access some audio files. We are actively investigating the incident.”
The company has not yet disclosed how many tracks were affected or whether user data was involved.
Potential Impact on Music Industry and AI Development
Experts warn that such a large-scale leak could have far-reaching implications:
Copyright & Revenue Risks
Unauthorized access to millions of songs could undermine artist royalties and licensing agreements.
AI Training Concerns
Reports, including one by The Guardian, suggest that leaked music datasets could be used by AI companies to train generative audio and music models—reviving ethical concerns around copyrighted data usage.
This follows earlier allegations that Meta (Facebook’s parent company) used pirated books from LibGen to train AI models, as revealed in US court filings.
Why This Case Is Significant
This incident highlights growing challenges in the digital era:
- DRM vulnerabilities in large streaming platforms
- The blurred line between digital preservation and piracy
- Increasing demand for mass datasets to fuel AI innovation
- The need for stronger global copyright enforcement
As streaming platforms dominate music consumption, such breaches raise questions about how securely creative content is stored and protected.
What Happens Next?
Spotify has not announced legal action yet, but further investigations and possible takedown efforts are expected. The case may also prompt wider discussions among policymakers, copyright holders, and technology companies regarding data ethics, AI training datasets, and digital content security.
