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Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

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Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#61

Post by crazygringo »

themafia wrote: post #22

I don't understand the sealing and ex-parte motions in this case. It looks completely corrupt. They're claiming that the archive would have released all the material publicly if they were allowed to know an injunction was about to be filed against them. Yet all those songs certainly have illegal copies already being distributed on the internet. So what was the actual harm being prevented here? I cannot understand how…

> Yet all those songs certainly have illegal copies already being distributed on the internet. So what was the actual harm being prevented here?

There's a huge difference between a ton of individual torrents or files you need to individually search for, identify, of varying quality, that may be mislabeled and have other sorts of quality issues, and which in no way approach "all" music...

...vs a single, shockingly comprehensive repository of uniformly high-quality music which does, in fact, approach "all" music.

If I wanted to start a pirate music service, it would become vastly easier with this particular repository. Many orders of magnitude easier. That's the actual harm.

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#62

Post by rjh29 »

asveikau wrote: post #58
rjh29 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm old enough to have an mp3 collection, so I haven't needed spotify. They don't have 20% of the tracks in my playlist and their integration of local audio has been steadily eroded to be almost unusable now (i.e. it's completely separate, doesn't show up in regular search, playlists etc.). They also push audiobooks and sponsored results in my face even on the Premium subscription, and their UI sucks. If you already…

Even if you have an mp3 collection, the streaming apps are good for discovery, recommendations, and generating playlists. There are probably good local solutions for the last one especially, but a convenient UI that's already on all your devices helps.

Absolutely - although the free plan (or free trial) of Spotify/YouTube are good enough for that.

Spotify is certainly convenient especially being multi-device, but after a few months you've probably exhausted its recommendations.

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#63

Post by crazygringo »

endofreach wrote: post #4

what‘s in it for spotify? i can‘t think of a single person who‘d stop paying for streaming services (music) in favour of going back to illegally download or (or even legally purchase) songs & managing their own library. m a y b e some devs would. but those thinking about it, wouldn‘t be stopped like that. i am thinking about it, yet i just renewed my subscription because i lack time & motivation to crawl down yet ano…

> what‘s in it for spotify?

Honestly, Spotify itself probably couldn't care less, for the obvious reasons you say.

But the music labels sure do. Their contracts with Spotify surely require it to implement appropriate DRM, stop all attempted piracy, etc. If Spotify wants to be on good negotiating terms with labels, they have absolutely no choice but to take as much legal action as possible.

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#64

Post by surround »

cdrnsf wrote: post #20

Pretty ironic considering they bootstrapped the service with pirated music. But they've never actually cared about music — they started as an ad platform and music was the cheapest option for them to attract eyeballs.

Wikipedia says

  Ek's initial pitch to Lorentzon was not initially related to music, but rather a way for streaming content such as video, digital films, images or music to drive advertising revenue.
So yes, they were always intending to get revenue from ads. And yes, the initial pitch included other types of media too. But I don't think we can call Spotify "an ad platform" that "never actually cared about music" any more than we could call Ars Technica "an ad platform that never actually cared about tech news."

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#65

Post by Paracompact »

Can anyone recommend a music discovery service that isn't garbage? I fled to Spotify from Pandora because it kept recommending me the exact same songs, but now Spotify does basically the same thing.

In the age of machine learning, I'm really surprised there aren't superhuman music recommendation algorithms. Or maybe there are, and these algorithms simply don't serve the corporate interests. But then where are the open-source alternatives?

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#66

Post by queenkjuul »

crazygringo wrote: post #61
themafia wrote: post #22

I don't understand the sealing and ex-parte motions in this case. It looks completely corrupt. They're claiming that the archive would have released all the material publicly if they were allowed to know an injunction was about to be filed against them. Yet all those songs certainly have illegal copies already being distributed on the internet. So what was the actual harm being prevented here? I cannot understand how…

> Yet all those songs certainly have illegal copies already being distributed on the internet. So what was the actual harm being prevented here? There's a huge difference between a ton of individual torrents or files you need to individually search for, identify, of varying quality, that may be mislabeled and have other sorts of quality issues, and which in no way approach "all" music... ...vs a single, shockingly co…

Lossless pirate archives also still exist if you know where to look. Not saying you're wrong, but from a truly material angle, someone dedicated to finding an archive with enough music to start a pirate site need only join one of the existing lossless pirate sites and copy theirs. I don't see how Anna's making it easier negates the fact that it can already be done

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#67

Post by amatecha »

dang wrote: post #5

Recent and related. Others? Anna's Archive loses .org domain after surprise suspension - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46497164 - Jan 2026 (358 comments) Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46355793 - Dec 2025 (82 comments) Backing up Spotify - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46338339 - Dec 2025 (701 comments)

IMO also recent and related: NVIDIA Contacted Anna’s Archive to Secure Access to Millions of Pirated Books - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46677628 - Jan 2026 (153 comments)

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#68

Post by queenkjuul »

endofreach wrote: post #4

what‘s in it for spotify? i can‘t think of a single person who‘d stop paying for streaming services (music) in favour of going back to illegally download or (or even legally purchase) songs & managing their own library. m a y b e some devs would. but those thinking about it, wouldn‘t be stopped like that. i am thinking about it, yet i just renewed my subscription because i lack time & motivation to crawl down yet ano…

Lol i say it to my friends all the time, "if music were as easy to pirate as 20 years ago I'd already be back"

Credit where it's due, Spotify made it a lot harder to find pirated music in good quality

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#69

Post by troupo »

endofreach wrote: post #4

what‘s in it for spotify? i can‘t think of a single person who‘d stop paying for streaming services (music) in favour of going back to illegally download or (or even legally purchase) songs & managing their own library. m a y b e some devs would. but those thinking about it, wouldn‘t be stopped like that. i am thinking about it, yet i just renewed my subscription because i lack time & motivation to crawl down yet ano…

You have to first find spotify in the court docs: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.65...

    ATLANTIC RECORDING CORPORATION;
    ATLANTIC MUSIC GROUP LLC; BAD
    BOY RECORDS LLC; ELEKTRA
    ENTERTAINMENT LLC; ELEKTRA
    ENTERTAINMENT GROUP INC.; FUELED
    BY RAMEN LLC; WARNER MUSIC
    INTERNATIONAL SERVICES LIMITED;
    WARNER RECORDS INC.; WARNER
    RECORDS LLC; SONY MUSIC
    ENTERTAINMENT; ARISTA MUSIC;
    ARISTA RECORDS, LLC; ZOMBA
    RECORDING LLC; UMG RECORDINGS,
    INC.; CAPITOL RECORDS, LLC; and
    SPOTIFY USA INC.,

       Plaintiffs,
ANd then you could read the decision https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.65...:

    Factual Background - III

    The Record Company Plaintiffs’ business model relies
    in significant part on the licensing of their catalogs of sound recordings
    to legitimate streaming services like Spotify.
IMO Spotify couldn't care less. The actual owners of music care.
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