Anna's Archive Quietly 'Releases' Millions of Spotify Tracks, Despite Legal Pushback (torrentfreak.com) 56
Anna's Archive, the shadow library that announced last December it had scraped Spotify's entire catalog, has quietly begun distributing the actual music files despite a federal preliminary injunction signed by Judge Jed Rakoff on January 16 that explicitly barred the site from hosting or distributing the copyrighted works.
The site's backend torrent index now lists 47 new torrents added on February 8, containing roughly 2.8 million tracks across approximately 6 terabytes of audio data. Anna's Archive had previously released only Spotify metadata -- about 200 GB compressed -- and appeared to comply by removing its dedicated Spotify download section and marking it "unavailable until further notice."
The site's backend torrent index now lists 47 new torrents added on February 8, containing roughly 2.8 million tracks across approximately 6 terabytes of audio data. Anna's Archive had previously released only Spotify metadata -- about 200 GB compressed -- and appeared to comply by removing its dedicated Spotify download section and marking it "unavailable until further notice."
No torrent link? (Score:2, Funny)
Of course, I kid. Considering what passes for popular music these days, I'd wear out my damn skip button. Still, I have to wonder how much space it would take to download all of Spotify.
Re:No torrent link? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems someone with mod points assumed I didn't do my research first and just spouted off. Spotify claims to have over 100 million tracks, 7 million podcast titles, and 500,000 audiobooks. [spotify.com] Now, admittedly, math has never been my strongest subject, but 2.8 million tracks seems just a teensy bit smaller than that (perhaps I misplaced a decimal somewhere - it has been known to happen).
So, my point was that the full, entire Spotify library must be quite mind-blowingly large. Probably in the order of not something you'd realistically even be able to download over a standard home broadband connection in much of the US, and your VPN provider would likely tell you to "cut it out" before you got anywhere close to being finished, anyway.
Re: No torrent link? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Everyone will wait for someone more palatable to come along and inform them as someone with credibility."
Did you just say the messenger is more important than the message and ad hominem is the best way of finding truth?
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Re:No torrent link? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would imagine the modding down was the Old Fart Get Off My Lawn intro rather than anything to do with whether there was a torrent link or how big the archive was.
(For those thinking "But most music today is crap", that was true ten years ago... twenty... thirty... forty... my entire life, and before it. You only remember the good stuff. There are always gems in the rough, that's what makes music worth listening to.)
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True, but the volume today is orders of magnitude more. But also music has gotten more and more simplistic in recent years, relying on hooks to grab listeners. Rick Beato expresses it much better than I.
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> True, but the volume today is orders of magnitude more
Not really, no.
You know, I distinctly remember a music journalist on TV making the same argument about how music was simplistic and reliant on catchiness and so on. He even gave an example, holding up cards of the same repeated lyrics as he played a popular song.
The song was "No Limits" by 2 Unlimited and the year was probably 1993 or 1994. The 1990s was especially poor for music, and yet gave us the Nine Inch Nails among other great bands.
Today is
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You honestly argue the sheer amount of music available in the 90s was just as much as today?b I think you completely missed my point. In fact you quoted one part of my post but actually responded to the unquoted portion. I never said music wasn't simple before. I was referencing the sheer volume now on Spotify and implying that the amount of it means the amount of garbage is therefore much greater also even if the proportion of good to bad is better or the same as before. And now we have an algorithm drivin
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Let's take a look at the top songs of 1986. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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There is just as much great music today as there ever was, it's just that us older folks don't hear it in the same way we heard our music in our youth. We are no longer just discovering life and hearing our peers, who are gifted artists, expressing the nature of that life we are discovering.
Re:No torrent link? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would imagine the modding down was the Old Fart Get Off My Lawn intro rather than anything to do with whether there was a torrent link or how big the archive was.
No, you and several others missed the point. You're not getting a curated collection, or the specialized algorithm, or any of the things that makes Spotify, Spotify. You're just getting one big honkin', massive collection of music, with about 80% of it being content that can't find more than 50 listeners. [musicbusin...ldwide.com]
You. Are. Going. To. Press. "Skip". A. Lot.
(For those thinking "But most music today is crap", that was true ten years ago... twenty... thirty... forty... my entire life, and before it. You only remember the good stuff. There are always gems in the rough, that's what makes music worth listening to.)
I was just in a department store earlier this evening that was playing Two Princes by Spin Doctors. That's a 34-year-old song. In 1991, that'd have been like a store rockin' some early Elvis tracks, which usually wasn't done unless nostalgia specifically was a theme the establishment was going for. Next time you're out somewhere, take note of the age of the songs being played - it's mostly what would've previously been considered "oldies".
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> No, you and several others missed the point.
Nah, you just didn't make the point you thought you were making. What you said was:
"Considering what passes for popular music these days, I'd wear out my damn skip button"
"these days" made it look like a get-off-my-lawn rant, rather than something about 90% of music of all eras being crap.
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with about 80% of it being content that can't find more than 50 listeners. [musicbusin...ldwide.com]
That's the exact opposite of what you said, you were talking about popular music, and now you're talking about edge/niche stuff? Pick a lane buddy.
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Post what you think and be done with it.
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My Anna's Archive link is down ATM so I can't verify. I'll check again some other time.
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That talks about releasing the metadata. There's a reddit thread five days ago where a person downloaded the json and there were 47 new torrents that appeared to be the data. But when I look for 2026-02-08 [annas-archive.li], I find only one entry.
Re: No torrent link? (Score:2)
Does not appear to return any music in search results.
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Modded Troll, really?
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/. modding used to mean something.
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It still does. It means you stepped on someone's sensitive ego. Maybe Taylor Swift or Dua Lipa reads Slashdot?
What to do with infinite music? (Score:1)
It's 2035, and as you're walking down the street, a stranger furtively motions towards you from a doorway. "Hey buddy", he says. "I got here a 10TB thumb drive filled with humanity's 2 million most popular songs. It's yours for $50. Buy this and you can listen to music 24/7 for the next 22 years without ever repeating a song".
In a moment of weakness, you agree to the purchase, and it turns out the stranger was true to his word -- all the promised music is on the drive, pirated and mp3-compressed for you
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Turn on the radio. When you hear something you like, check the catalog. Or listen to some podcasts that feature up and comers, or niche music. I can't begin to list all of the music I stumbled across listening to "Bands Under the Radar" by Kami Knake back in the day. Or classics I somehow missed on "Vinyl Tap" by Randy Bachman. But if you have "all" of Spotify, branch out. Tune into the local university AM/FM broadcast. Check out jazz stations. Come back to your library for the rest of it.
You're right. A li
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As long as you have it, someone'll figure a way that you like and write a script that you can use.
Any algorithm you can think of will run fine on any single CPU on any one of the several small computers you routinely carry around.
No big deal.
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Subscribe to Spotify for a month and use its algorithms to find music you like and build playlists off those likes. Download playlists, import them to your local player, boom.
Rinse/repeat as your tastes change, or until they pirate the spotify source code in which case just run the whole thing off your smart watch in 2042.
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They have the Spotify metadata as well, which includes the info used to build their algorithm.
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... we've got another Napster for ya!
Ahh, Napster! We knew ye well! We shall R.I.P. a mettallica musical memoriam about you to CD, once we've found somebody who still has a CD.
And Limewire. The hours of fun using a little knowledge and logic to sort through the corrupted malware/falseflag/poor quality files, zooming in to one or perhaps a small selection to download and listen to and compare. Then watching a global network of computers agree to help assemble those files on my own computer.
A judge? (Score:2)
Of course a "shadow library" ignored a direct order from a judge. They aren't interested in following any laws.
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Torrent files are pure metadata. There is no copyrighted (or copyrightable) content in them.
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If a clueless judge issues an order, it's still the law that you must obey the order until you've had your day in court to (for example) argue that metadata alone doesn't constitute piracy. Ignoring such an order is unlawful, assuming the court has any jurisdiction.
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If a clueless judge issues an order, it's still the law that you must obey the order until you've had your day in court to (for example) argue that metadata alone doesn't constitute piracy. Ignoring such an order is unlawful, assuming the court has any jurisdiction.
If clueless Judge Canute orders pi to be an even 3.000 we should laugh heartily and ignore completely, completely irrespective of whatever the justice system may do or not do. A justice system that is ignorant about the technical subjects it rules on is not worthy of respect, and demonstrably stupid laws should be widely ignored, lest we all aspire to be equally stupid because it is somehow required of us.
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Ignorant judges can still hold you in contempt of court for failing to appear and/or following a direct order.
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There is the question of jurisdiction. A judge in one country does not have say over what happens in another.
Imagine you lived in China. Would you give two shakes of a rat's posterior what a judge in the US said you could or could not do? If you lived in England, wouldn't you just laugh off what a judge in Brazil says you could or could not do? If you lived on Christmas Island, would you care what a judge in Ivory Coast said?
I trust you get the point.
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That ties in with what I already said. They definitely won't obey the laws of another country.
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US vs. England is no good example. Countries that have trade agreements also often allow to enforce certain laws. But countries that are more in competition like US vs. China are what people use for "bullet proof" hosting.
Want to stop piracy? Give us fair copyright length (Score:5, Informative)
- The current 95-year copyright terms reward the big copyright cartel but do NOTHING for creation.
- We, the people, are not getting anything back for the privilege we give away.
- Almost all creations only make money in the first 5 years anyway.
Piracy is fair use until the copyright length is a reasonable 5 years.
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Besides, we do get something back. Art. And it was an artist who became a legislator, not a cartel, that introduced the legislation to extend copyrights. He made a good argument, and as a society, we accepted it.
What you're saying boils down to, "reject the outcomes of the democratic process unless you agree with them". Which is the opposite of how that's supposed to work.
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As I pointed out, almost all creations make all their money withing 5 years, so reducing the term to a fair five years does not take money from almost all art, while encouraging the creation of more art. Which is why we give creators the copyright privilege.
"And it was an artist who became a legislator, not a cartel, that introduced the legislation to extend copyrights."
Copyright law was not put to the people for a vote. Corrupt legislators were bought off by the co
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And disobeying the law as a protest to get the law changed is also part of democracy. Like sitting at the front of the bus.
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That is a win for what is right.
100 million? (Score:2)
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