📰 New article from TorrentFreak
Spotify and Labels Seek $322 Million Default Judgment Against Anna’s Archive
https://torrentfreak.com/spotify-and-labels-seek-322-million-default-judgment-against-annas-archive/
Spotify & Labels Demand $322M from Anna’s Archive in Default Judgment Bid
Anna’s Archive—best known as a shadow library indexing pirated books—surprised the music industry last December when it announced it had also backed up Spotify, scraping metadata (and later, music files) from the streaming giant. The move triggered an immediate legal response: Universal, Warner, Sony, and Spotify filed suit in December 2023, leading to domain seizures and the site’s temporary shutdown of Spotify-related content.
But even after Anna’s Archive removed the torrents—including the controversial 2.8 million music files released in February—the plaintiffs are pressing hard for a $322 million default judgment, citing the site’s silence in court. Their argument hinges on two key claims:
- Copyright infringement: Each label seeks $150,000 per work for around 50 songs (total: ~$22.2M).
- DMCA circumvention: Spotify claims Anna’s bypassed DRM on 120,000 files at $2,500 per file = $300 million.
The plaintiffs call this amount “extremely conservative”—they only investigated 120,000 downloads (not all 2.8 million), and even avoided the full theoretical penalty to stay reasonable.
RIAA’s own tech VP personally downloaded torrents, confirming Spotify metadata and playable files outside the app—proof of DRM circumvention. Meanwhile, Spotify’s engineers swear up and down: those files shouldn’t have worked outside the app.
In addition to damages, plaintiffs want a sweeping injunction banning all current and past Anna’s Archive domains—and compelling global registrars, hosts, and even Cloudflare to enforce it.
Bottom line: Unless Anna’s Archive responds (and shells out $322M), the site may be permanently buried—and serve as a stark warning to other “shadow” projects daring to tangle with Big Tech and Big Music.