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

Post by crtasm » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:03 AM UTC

troupo wrote: post #71

themafia wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cozy secondary relationships with music labels. Payola goes one way and industry demands go the other. Since "owners" take such a big chunk (50%) of paid royalties for streaming there is a strong incentive to only play music that is "owned" by labels and not directly by artists and performers. Controlling the number of "spins" an song or album of theirs gets is still a huge concern of the labels.

> here is a strong incentive to only play music that is "owned" by labels and not directly by artists and performers. Spotify has exactly zero music "directly by artists and performers". Even indie artists have to go through distributors and labels. Because without "owners" that own 60-80% of all world music , and that Spotify pays 70% of revenue to there would be no Spotify (or any music streaming service).

Post by lolive » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:14 AM UTC

lolive wrote: post #102

Paracompact wrote: post #65

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 ope…

I still pay for Spotify, but nowadays 99% of my music consumption are local FM radios, plus mainstream webradios [radioParadise, FIP, BBC6, NTS]. I sometimes Shazam things, but rarely have the time to listen them back on Spotify. My attention time is limited by other things [:those stupid real-life stuff every normal person was praising in the old times: kids, family, work, burnout, failing cars, gardenning. And slee…

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 4:02 AM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #72

crazygringo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually committing a crime is not the same as saying you will commit a crime. No, but it can have a lot of legal repercussions, like restraining orders, you can be arrested for making a threat, search warrants may be issued... and in the case of corporations, restraining orders and injunctions. Like here. This is all very standard stuff. There's absolutely nothing exceptional about the court process in this partic…

>On January 2, the music companies asked for a temporary restraining order, and the court granted it the same day. That pretty much tells me all about what courts care about. Can't get TRO's when the government is attacking its people, but when there's a sniff of sharing music? Instant hammer. EDIT: to answer a response I got about "courts aren't supposed to 'care'", that's the point of a TRO: >To obtain a TRO, a par…

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 4:23 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #105

johnnyanmac wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On January 2, the music companies asked for a temporary restraining order, and the court granted it the same day. That pretty much tells me all about what courts care about. Can't get TRO's when the government is attacking its people, but when there's a sniff of sharing music? Instant hammer. EDIT: to answer a response I got about "courts aren't supposed to 'care'", that's the point of a TRO: >To obtain a TRO, a par…

> Getting a TRO the same day because maybe one day some website will have archives of music files just shows how out of touch the justice system is with tech. Huh? It's not a "maybe one day", it was a public announcement by AA that they were absolutely going to do this soon. And TRO's are exactly for this, when irreparable harm might occur. Nothing out of touch at all. Now, granted the site still operates under other…

Post by queenkjuul » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:18 AM UTC

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.