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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

#91

Post by johnnyanmac »

amatecha wrote: post #67
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)

Pretty much where we are in the world. You can scrape copyrighted works and re-jigger them in your own database to spit out a fascimile of art. But you can't "point" to where these scapers are going.

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

#92

Post by johnnyanmac »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #84
queenkjuul wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I dont think the idea that it can be already done matters though. You just have to show harm or intent to harm, and the archive had it. Selective prosecution isn't a strong defense in civil court.

For a normal case, maybe. for a TRO, it does matter. And they got a TRO the same day they asked on Jan 2nd. That's an oddly concerning move.

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

#93

Post by johnnyanmac »

parpfish wrote: post #13
snowmobile wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are cancelling Spotify among my friends, even very "non-technical" folks. For me I've just gone back to radio or Youtube:ing a few songs for free here and there. Paying the cost of a lunch every month is just not worth it anymore for subscription services.

This is also a big party of why artists don’t earn shit. Spotify will never be able to pay out enough if people don’t think this music is worth paying for. They want access to every new album but refuse to pay how much a single new CD would have cost back in the day

Spotify is a model where the artist suffers, the company itself works on a slim margin, and the record labels gets the lion's share. It's pretty much the worst case scenario business.

The issue even goes back to the days of CD's. The artist still wouldn't get that much back compared to the label publishing the disc. even in 2000 is was still more profitable to buy a tshirt than a CD from the artist.

I'm not very well versed in this area, but clearly something needs to change. Being able to independently published helps, but Spotify's model does indeed make it harder to sell your own albums despite it being easier than ever to distribute it without a middleman.

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

#95

Post by johnnyanmac »

doesnt_know wrote: post #39
parpfish wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also a big party of why artists don’t earn shit. Spotify will never be able to pay out enough if people don’t think this music is worth paying for. They want access to every new album but refuse to pay how much a single new CD would have cost back in the day

Every entertainment market is saturated. Even if every creative endeavour stopped now, there would still be more freely available content to last more then any individual human life span. Unless you’re the type of person that actively considers them a fan of something and goes out of their way to consume a specific niche, there isn’t much reason to pay much, or anything for entertainment.

>Unless you’re the type of person that actively considers them a fan of something

to be fair, that's a billion dollar business of an audience. Bandcamp is still a thing because people like that exist. So I wouldn't readily dismiss that.

But yes. We're in an age where people treat TV shows as "second screen entertainment", the silver screen is dying out, and where Spotify is flooding its library with white noise and AI slop. And people at best shrug. There's never been less respect for the arts, and it reflects in wider consumer patterns. Any future artists will need to appeal to a shrinkingly few fanbase of those who care about quality.

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

#96

Post by johnnyanmac »

parpfish wrote: post #52
writebetterc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is also a big party of why artists don’t earn shit. The pie that Spotify divides up among the artists is a global one. It's not like you listen to one artist, so they get your 10 bucks every month. You're paying Taylor Swift, even though you never listen to her.

Their prorata payment scheme isn’t inherently good or bad. If I listen to obscure indie band all month, some of my money will go to Taylor swift. But all those swifties are also paying obscure indie band.

it's not bad by itself, but I argue the opaque structure of it is horrendous. Especially in financial matters, you should be able to estimate how much money you get if you put X effort in and get Y metrics. But even getting a proper Y isn't straightforward, let alone Z payout.

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

#97

Post by johnnyanmac »

Retr0id wrote: post #60
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…

I think the main use-case for the metadata-enriched 300TB archive is training AI models like suno. Anyone torrenting music for personal consumption had higher quality sources available already.

NVidia seems to agree: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46677628

Their response to litigation?

> NVIDIA defended its actions as fair use, noting that books are nothing more than statistical correlations to its AI models.

It's barely veiled these days how little they care for art.

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

#98

Post by johnnyanmac »

JasonADrury wrote: post #14
snowmobile wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since they don't "own" the data they lost, only "rent" it, they probably have to be seen doing something about it, lest they face the wrath of record companies.

I have a really hard time imagining the record companies giving a shit about this, this isn't a pre-release leak. All the valuable content is already freely and easily available for download on the internet.

The PR of being "hard on pirates" matters a lot more than any losses they may take, imagined or otherwise. I just hate how fast courts will act on this compared to matters of literal life and death.

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

#99

Post by brailsafe »

ezst wrote: post #11
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…

I will never START paying for Spotify. I like my music and so I like to know my music, I have no problem curating my collection, chasing rare works for artists I really like. I enjoy the process, I enjoy the result, I enjoy that I own it. I really don't see why I would rather spend hundreds a year for the privilege of owning nothing at all in the end, while being prescribed what I shall listen to, when and where.

Seems like a reasonable hobby, people love doing this, but idk that not doing something you already wouldn't be inclined to do carries much weight.

Almost like how people who haven't moved out of their hometown cite all sorts of reasons or apparent faults of the place they haven't moved to, like it's too expensive; it's too rainy; it's too busy; it's not sunny enough; but really, they weren't in the business of leaving anyway, because they're comfortable or don't know how to make friends, or they stubbornly try to love a place they actually hate, or they have family there and a support structure, or they have no ambition, or they actually just like the place. Either way, the moving goalposts and random critiques don't matter, it's not the hypothetical destination's burden to court someone who won't make that leap anyway, but there may be a select few fence sitters who are just waiting for a push.

I don't think Spotify's main objective is to persuade hobbyist music collectors to stop, but rather it's to persuade people who want to access music anywhere to pay for the service, which may or may not be someone forced to ditch their vinyl collection or Zune. Voting with your wallet only matters if the service you actually might pay for or are paying for stops being a compelling product.

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