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Update (Dec. 22, 10:11 am): A Spotify spokesperson just released the following statement: “Spotify has identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping. We’ve implemented new safeguards for these types of anti-copyright attacks and are actively monitoring for suspicious behavior. Since day one, we have stood with the artist community against piracy, and we are actively working with our industry partners to protect creators and defend their rights.”
Original Story: A pirate activist group has scraped and released metadata from Spotify, according to a blog post on open source search engine Anna’s Archive.
The report alleges the scrape includes 256 million rows of track metadata and 86 million audio files, to be distributed on P2P networks in bulk torrents totaling roughly 300 terabytes. As of Sunday (Dec. 21), the report indicates only metadata, not music files, have been released.
In a statement obtained by Billboard, a representative for Spotify says, “An investigation into unauthorized access identified that a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM to access some of the platform’s audio files.”
“We are actively investigating the incident,” Spotify notes.
Reactions to the initial report by Anna’s Archive, like one circulating via a LinkedIn post from Yoav Zimmerman, CEO/co-founder of Third Chair — a startup that uses AI to build legal tools for media companies — theorized “anyone can now, in theory, create their own personal free version of Spotify (all music up to 2025) with enough storage and a personal media streaming server like Plex. The only real barriers are copyright law and fear of enforcement.”
Spotify’s total audio files exceed the number mentioned by Anna’s Archive. Still, Zimmerman’s commentary points out that the incident could potentially dwarf the largest previously available open music archive, MusicBrainz, which contains around five million unique tracks.
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