Anna’s Archive, an open-source search engine that has created what it calls the “largest truly open library in human history,” has scraped Spotify’s library and archived around 86 million music files that will be distributed in bulk torrents in just under 300TB in total size.
Billboard first reported that the group published a blog post about the project. In that blog post, Anna’s Archives explains that “This is the world’s first “preservation archive” for music which is fully open (meaning it can easily be mirrored by anyone with enough disk space).”
Anna’s Archives says that it typically focuses on backing up texts, including books and papers, but believes in “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture” which the group believes should include a collection of music.
At the time that the blog post was published on December 20, only metadata saved from Spotify had been released. The next stage will be the release of music files, in order of popularity. Following that, the group plans to release additional file metadata, album art, and .zstdpatch files.
Spotify has responded with a statement, saying “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.”