Spotify is shutting down access to a site that copied its music catalog
By ForGeeks
Spotify said it is locking accounts and beefing up security after shadowy site Anna’s Archive reported a large-scale collection of metadata and audio files from the service’s music library.
Spotify has announced that it is terminating access to and taking action against Anna’s Archive, a website that claimed to be scraping data from the streaming service’s music catalog on a large scale. The company said some user accounts have been disabled and additional defenses have already been put in place.
On Dec. 20, Anna’s Archive published a blog post announcing the distribution of about 300 terabytes of data allegedly collected from Spotify’s platform. The statement claims that the data in question is metadata and audio files associated with 256 million music tracks. So far, the site has posted 86 million music files, which it claims covers approximately 99.6% of all listens on the platform. The authors of the post called its actions a “preservation project” and said it was considering downloading individual files in the future. The post also included a call for donations.
Spotify responded by saying it had launched an investigation before the publication and had already taken action. A spokesperson said Spotify has identified and disabled user accounts involved in illegal data scraping. In addition, the service has implemented new defenses against copyright infringement attacks and continues to monitor suspicious activity.
The company emphasized that since its inception, it has been on the side of music artists and copyright holders and intends to continue protecting their interests. According to a Spotify spokesperson, the service actively cooperates with industry partners to prevent piracy and protect the rights of content creators.
The company emphasized that since its inception, it has been on the side of music artists and rights holders and intends to further protect their interests.
On its blog, Anna’s Archive says the current data release is just the first stage. In the future, the site plans to continue laying out music files in order of popularity on Spotify, as well as publishing additional metadata, album artwork and special files that the authors claim will restore Spotify’s original file structure. The publication emphasizes that the database is supposedly the largest publicly available archive of music metadata.
