Anna's Archive has leaked a vast collection of Spotify's metadata and audio files, affecting approximately 256 million tracks. This breach, confirmed by Spotify, has prompted an internal investigation into the unauthorized access.
Details of the Breach
The open-source search engine Anna's Archive announced it has archived metadata for nearly 99.9% of Spotify's catalog. The project also preserved around 86 million audio files, covering an estimated 99.6% of all platform streams. The total archive size is nearly 300 terabytes, now available via torrent networks.
Anna's Archive describes this as the first fully open music preservation archive, allowing free duplication without centralized infrastructure. Typically focused on archiving books and scientific materials, the project made an exception for this music archive.
Spotify's Response
Spotify confirmed the breach, stating that a third party accessed public metadata and used illegal tactics to bypass DRM protections for some audio files. The company noted that the number of audio files on its platform exceeds the figures released by Anna's Archive.
According to Spotify's catalog statistics, over 70% of tracks have fewer than 1,000 plays, while about 0.1% of tracks generate the majority of traffic. Popular tracks include Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' "Die With A Smile" with over 3 billion plays, Billie Eilish's "BIRDS OF A FEATHER" with over 3.1 billion, and Bad Bunny's "DtMF" with over 1.1 billion.
The archive's creators highlighted the challenge of preserving culturally valuable content amid the rise of AI-generated music. Previously, the anonymous Panama Playlists project published listening histories of politicians and public figures on Spotify, which journalists verified as accurate.
