Key Insights

• Incident Overview: A pirate activist group has scraped and released metadata from Spotify.
• Data Volume: The scrape reportedly includes 256 million rows of track metadata and 86 million audio files.
• Spotify’s Response: Spotify is investigating unauthorized access and the scraping of public metadata.
• Potential Impact: This incident could allow individuals to create personal versions of Spotify with sufficient storage.

A pirate activist group has scraped and released metadata from Spotify, according to a blog post on open source search engine Anna’s Archive.

The report alleges the scrape includes 256 million rows of track metadata and 86 million audio files, to be distributed on P2P networks in bulk torrents totaling roughly 300 terabytes. As of Sunday (Dec. 21), the report indicates only metadata, not music files, have been released.

In a statement obtained by Billboard, a representative for Spotify says, “An investigation into unauthorized access identified that a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM to access some of the platform’s audio files.”

“We are actively investigating the incident,” Spotify notes.

Reactions to the initial report by Anna’s Archive, like one circulating via a LinkedIn post from Yoav Zimmerman, CEO/co-founder of Third Chair — a startup that uses AI to build legal tools for media companies — theorized “anyone can now, in theory, create their own personal free version of Spotify (all music up to 2025) with enough storage and a personal media streaming server like Plex. The only real barriers are copyright law and fear of enforcement.”

Spotify’s total audio files exceed the number mentioned by Anna’s Archive. Still, Zimmerman’s commentary points out that the incident could potentially dwarf the largest previously available open music archive, MusicBrainz, which contains around five million unique tracks.

Anna’s Archive, which typically focuses on books and papers, said the project is part of its mission of “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture” and described the Spotify scrape as an effort to “build a music archive primarily aimed at preservation.”

The post added, “Of course Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start.”