GoKawiilSpotify and major record labels are seeking a $322 million default judgment from Anna’s Archive, which hasn’t responded to court proceedings over its scraping of millions of music files from Spotify’s streaming service.
The music companies are also seeking a permanent injunction in an attempt to eject the Anna’s Archive website from the Internet by cutting off its access to domain and hosting providers. But the plaintiffs previously obtained a similar injunction that proved to be little more than an inconvenience for the shadow library, which has changed providers and said it’s working on bolstering its ability to remain online in the face of court orders.
The music companies sued Anna’s Archive in late December and quickly obtained a court order that shut down the shadow library’s .org domain, though Anna’s Archive has remained online elsewhere. Anna’s Archive has filed no response to the lawsuit in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the clerk of court last month certified that the defendant is in default.
The plaintiffs yesterday asked for a default judgment ordering Anna’s Archive to pay $300 million to Spotify, $7.5 million to Sony, another $7.5 million to Universal Music Group (UMG), and $7.2 million to Warner. In addition to money, they seek a permanent injunction requiring domain and hosting companies to disable access to Anna’s Archive websites.
“Defendant’s blatant and willful disregard for Plaintiffs’ rights and the Court’s authority warrants imposition of statutory damages against Defendant for copyright infringement in the amount of $22,200,000, and for violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the amount of $300,000,000, as well as permanent injunctive relief,” Spotify and the record labels said in a memorandum of law.
“Blatant” violation of preliminary injunction
Anna’s Archive posted torrents with 2.8 million music files and said it had scrapped 86 million in all, but the plaintiffs seek damages only for 120,000 files they downloaded as part of their investigation into the leak. Spotify’s requested DMCA damages are based on statutory damages of $2,500 for each act of circumventing Spotify’s technological measures for protecting copyrighted works.