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Despite being sued by Spotify and several record labels, Anna’s Archive has silently begun releasing the actual music files from its massive Spotify scrape. The shadow library’s backend torrent index now lists dozens of new torrents containing approximately 2.8 million tracks totaling roughly 6 terabytes of audio data. This marks a significant escalation in the already historic standoff with the music industry.
Anna’s Archive is generally known as a meta-search engine for shadow libraries, helping users find pirated books and other related resources.
However, last December, the site announced that it had also backed up Spotify, which came as a shock to the music industry.
Anna’s Archive initially released only Spotify metadata, and no actual music, but that put the music industry on high alert. Together with the likes of Universal, Warner, and Sony, Spotify filed a lawsuit days later, hoping to shut the site down.
Through a preliminary injunction targeting domain registrars and registries, the shadow library lost several domain names. However, not all were taken down, and with the addition of a new Greenland-based backup, the site apparently pushed through with the feared Spotify data release.
Millions of Music Files
While there hasn’t been an official announcement or a formal listing on the torrent page, several people have spotted dozens of new Spotify download links in the torrents.json file hosted on the site. These files were added on February 8, presumably with a single seeder.
At the time of writing, we count 47 new music torrents, plus a new metadata torrent. These releases all contain 60,000 files, except for a smaller batch, bringing the total to roughly 2.8 million files. That’s roughly 6 terabytes of music.
In addition, there’s a massive 29 GB ‘seekable’ metadata file, which likely acts as the index for the 2.8 million tracks that use abstract Spotify track IDs as names.
On Reddit, the mysterious releases are actively discussed in various threads. They do indeed contain music files, ranging from a few hundred kilobytes to several megabytes. The filenames reference what appear to be Spotify track IDs but contain no artist names or song titles. Instead, they likely match Spotify’s internal cache format.
The music files themselves come with embedded media information and metadata, including song, album, artist, and publisher, among others. If applicable, the cover art is also included.
The torrents are labeled “pop_0,” which, based on Anna’s Archive’s earlier blog post, refers to the popularity rank. The site previously said it planned a staggered release, based on how popular releases are, but additional batches could follow.
Defying the Injunction
The release comes despite a preliminary injunction signed by Judge Jed Rakoff on January 16. That order explicitly prohibited Anna’s Archive from hosting, linking to, or distributing the copyrighted works, and also targeted third-party intermediaries, including domain registries, hosting companies, and Cloudflare.
Anna’s Archive previously appeared to comply, at least in part. The site’s dedicated Spotify download section was removed and marked as “unavailable until further notice.” However, the new torrents suggest that this was a temporary measure rather than a lasting retreat.
Until now, only metadata had been released publicly, compressed into roughly 200GB. The actual music files, which the lawsuit specifically sought to prevent from being distributed, are of much bigger concern.
What’s Next
Given the gravity of the situation, Spotify and the labels are not expected to sit idly by. Anna’s Archive previously said it archived roughly 86 million music files, and almost 300 terabytes in total, so there could be more to come.
Whether the music companies will also monitor people who share these files for potential legal follow-ups is unknown, but they will do their best to keep the pressure on intermediaries.
The music companies already have a court-ordered injunction that compels domain name registrars and registries to make the site inaccessible. However, we have observed that companies and organizations that fall outside the U.S. jurisdiction don’t automatically comply with these.
At the time of writing, Anna’s Archive has not publicly commented on the new release yet. Spotify informed us that the company has no further comments at this time and referred us to the preliminary injunction it obtained in U.S. court last month.
