Spotify announces massive music archive was illegally copied
Spotify has announced that millions of music files on its platform were copied illegally. A pirate group has shared a large portion of these files online.
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According to information published on a platform called Anna’s Archive, 86 million audio files and metadata for 256 million tracks, covering a large portion of the content uploaded to Spotify between 2007 and 2025, have been archived. It was stated that these files represent 99.6% of all streams on Spotify.
The pirate group claimed that the data leak is the "world's first fully open music preservation archive," arguing that anyone with sufficient disk space can download it. The platform, which previously focused on the preservation of books and written content, has now turned its attention to music archives.
A Spotify spokesperson confirmed that the digital rights management (DRM) system was bypassed illegally and that access was gained to some audio files. They stated that the user accounts belonging to these individuals have been closed and that new measures have been taken against similar attacks. The company emphasized that no private user data was compromised in the incident, and that only publicly available user lists were affected.
According to the hacker group, the approximately 300 TB of data will be released in bulk torrents on file-sharing networks. It is stated that this situation poses serious risks for artificial intelligence companies. Third Chair CEO Yoav Zimmerman noted that AI models could be trained more easily with this music, but that copyright laws could hinder this process.
Spotify announced that they are working with industry stakeholders to protect the rights of artists and that they stand with artists against piracy.