World’s largest shadow library brags it scraped 300TB of Spotify music, metadata
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
IIRC YTM usually tries to find official uploads first, but in the absence of official channels they'll often pull audio from random channels' uploads. It's usually most noticeable by the bitrate drops.
As for payment, it's probably less than Spotify.
Upvote
9
(10
/
-1)
The servers including DNS are probably in some country that ignores IP laws, because (other people's) "information wants to be free"
Upvote
24
(24
/
0)
It kinda wild looking through the genres represented.
https://annas-archive.org/blog/backing-up-spotify.html
I recognize that Spotify pays nothing per stream and make a reasonable effort to purchase my rando Dream Theater vinyl off their website so that they receive the most margin possible. (I'm also one of those nuts who buys the Blu-ray for the Atmos mixes, thanks Steven Wilson!!)
Instrumental Convergence comes to mind with this move by Anna's Archive. They posit some benign, selfless goal but in actuality create a greater harm. I'm not really sure what their end goal is, and they might not either. That's the danger, justifying this move creating the hazard of others repeating it.
https://annas-archive.org/blog/backing-up-spotify.html
I recognize that Spotify pays nothing per stream and make a reasonable effort to purchase my rando Dream Theater vinyl off their website so that they receive the most margin possible. (I'm also one of those nuts who buys the Blu-ray for the Atmos mixes, thanks Steven Wilson!!)
Instrumental Convergence comes to mind with this move by Anna's Archive. They posit some benign, selfless goal but in actuality create a greater harm. I'm not really sure what their end goal is, and they might not either. That's the danger, justifying this move creating the hazard of others repeating it.
Attachments
Upvote
12
(12
/
0)
The same way they did before recorded music, the same way most still do..live
Upvote
-4
(19
/
-23)
Upvote
18
(21
/
-3)
My Plex server is approaching filling up my total of 100tb and I’m starting to sweat what free space I have. I’ve upgraded the drives over the last few years and if I can find an economical way to get over the 20tb per drive cost I’m definitely going to. My limit right now is that I can only have 8 drives at a time in my synology rack and I’m not really that interested in buying their expansion rack for it. I’m also too lazy to try and figure a way to move it all to a larger rack with a different OS. Having that amount of space is not something I’d want I don’t think, but I’m at 100tb total space without a lot of work and not a terrible amount of money having waited for sales and finding drives to shuck to get really good deals.
Upvote
12
(12
/
0)
You could just subscribe to Apple Music or YouTube music? You do realize that the large majority of these songs will be on non-Spotify platforms?
Upvote
22
(22
/
0)
Imagine pretending that theft = preserving. So.. when are these criminals going to federal prison?
Upvote
-15
(10
/
-25)
This is infringement regardless of what Anna's Archive calls it.
A backup is permitted only for legally obtained information. None of this was legally obtained. It's pure piracy regardless of Spotify and the music publishing industry's dubious practices. No one is getting hurt here except the artists and perhaps the users of the Archive when they (the Archive) get sued out of existence. 300 TB of willfully pirated music at scale? Yeah, we're talking what's likely to be the second largest copyright infringement lawsuit to date. (The largest is likely to be Author's Guild v. OpenAI where Altman's plagerism machine initially scraped millions of books from shadow libraries instead of obtaining materials legally.)
A backup is permitted only for legally obtained information. None of this was legally obtained. It's pure piracy regardless of Spotify and the music publishing industry's dubious practices. No one is getting hurt here except the artists and perhaps the users of the Archive when they (the Archive) get sued out of existence. 300 TB of willfully pirated music at scale? Yeah, we're talking what's likely to be the second largest copyright infringement lawsuit to date. (The largest is likely to be Author's Guild v. OpenAI where Altman's plagerism machine initially scraped millions of books from shadow libraries instead of obtaining materials legally.)
Upvote
23
(26
/
-3)
Artists weren't complaining though when the average album or CD was $18 and if you were only interested in a song or two on it then oh well....
Damaged the CD? Oh well, buy another.
I'm curious what people think the solution is. Raise Spotify monthly fees to $50 giving the increase to musicians? Ok, which musicians? If distributed by plays you'd just be making Weekend and Taylor Swift richer. Nevermind that most subscribers would cancel at that rate anyway. Or do you think CDs are ready to make a comeback?
Upvote
-15
(21
/
-36)
That's the findability/too much information problem. How do you find music in genres and styles you like when there's probably petabytes worth of chaff to search through? I'm no fan of GenAI, but this happens to be a field where useful AI tooling would be helpful. I just don't think we'll ever get AI tools that do anything but reinforce and expand already existing divides. We see the same problem with "viral" and shallow, astroturfed influencer highlighted points of interests and eateries showing up and crowding out in navigation apps and search engines instead of equally deserving mom and pop places.
Upvote
9
(9
/
0)
Apple Music has a ton of lossless stuff.
And when you consider how much an audio file weighs, a ton is quite a lot.
Upvote
34
(36
/
-2)
Pretty sure that's where YT's Content ID system comes in - if it flags a song as belonging to an artist, it gives the monetization to that artist, regardless of who uploaded it. Part of the deal they made with the RIAA to not copyright strike everything into oblivion...
Upvote
32
(32
/
0)
If they say they're using it to train open source "AI", they can get away with it, like Facebook, right?
Upvote
16
(17
/
-1)
So, I actually really liked Anna’s Archive, you could find books on many things that were useful in the communities I ran with, textbooks on more obscure topics that allowed us to learn how to keep us safe and gave us new ways of approaching projects. When you are extremely cash poor, it was a great resource to share an AA link and give someone who wouldn’t otherwise have the access the ability to really dive into the topic past what you could find on Wikipedia.
This is not that. It’s sad, but what felt like a genuinely countercultural resource has gone the way of many others aspects of the Internet that, when given an opportunity, will trade mission for profit.
This is not that. It’s sad, but what felt like a genuinely countercultural resource has gone the way of many others aspects of the Internet that, when given an opportunity, will trade mission for profit.
Upvote
32
(35
/
-3)
There used to be an elegant solution to this: regional markets.
A band would start out and develop a local following in their home town, playing live music venues like pubs, clubs and university campuses. They would hone their craft, work out what audiences like, and develop their style. If they gathered enough attention, they might start to get airplay on local radio or a larger indie station. They might land a record deal on a smaller label, then from there strive for national recognition. If they were really lucky, and had sufficient talent, they might "break out" and achieve international success.
This may not have been an entirely fair system, with some bands with clear talent being stuck in a local rut, but it at least offered a viable pathway to success. Or, at least, to a solid side-income as a "locally famous band". We had one band in my home town that spent decades on the verge of breaking out, occasionally making a showing in the national charts, but never achieving widespread fame. But they still managed to make a living from local gigs, events, support tours and album sales.
That's all much harder now. The live music scene for smaller acts is barely hanging on, and local radio and TV are being supplanted by global platforms, so the traditional "apprenticeship" of becoming locally-notable before achieving wider success is far more difficult than it was in the past.
It seems the more practical path now is to attempt to find fame on social media. But that's more of an all-or-nothing deal. With feeds curated by international platforms, there's a much smaller chance of getting local attention, and a greater chance you're joining in with the many other performers who are just playing into the void.
Upvote
28
(29
/
-1)
Straight up theft. Nobody should be excusing this, or wondering if the motives were perhaps benevolent.
Yes, Spotify is a shitty platform. Streaming royalties are exploitative. However, two wrongs don't make a right. All that Anna's Archive have done here is pile on to fuck the artists some more and further diminish the monetary value of the music that we all enjoy.
This is why it's so important to support artists. Go see them in concert if they are still performing. Actually buy albums. Vinyl records are fun. Buy a turntable and enjoy yourself. If you like music, it shouldn't be about getting as much as you can, as conveniently as possible, for as little money as possible. Otherwise, the future is AI generated slop tunes with product placement from AI generated influencers.
I hope Anna's Archive gets sued into oblivion and someone actually goes to jail for this. I hope artists start to move away from companies like Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal, and all the rest.
It's a sad day for music.
Yes, Spotify is a shitty platform. Streaming royalties are exploitative. However, two wrongs don't make a right. All that Anna's Archive have done here is pile on to fuck the artists some more and further diminish the monetary value of the music that we all enjoy.
This is why it's so important to support artists. Go see them in concert if they are still performing. Actually buy albums. Vinyl records are fun. Buy a turntable and enjoy yourself. If you like music, it shouldn't be about getting as much as you can, as conveniently as possible, for as little money as possible. Otherwise, the future is AI generated slop tunes with product placement from AI generated influencers.
I hope Anna's Archive gets sued into oblivion and someone actually goes to jail for this. I hope artists start to move away from companies like Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal, and all the rest.
It's a sad day for music.
Upvote
11
(21
/
-10)
Off topic maybe, but fuck Spotify. I was a subscriber for 10 years. I quit this year for reasons beyond the scope of this article (political reasons), but I should’ve quit them a long time ago given how they treat artists.
Upvote
23
(28
/
-5)
<shrugs>
From where I am standing, neither of those options are the place to peruse music. The only significant difference between them is that one of them is "legal".
From where I am standing, neither of those options are the place to peruse music. The only significant difference between them is that one of them is "legal".
Upvote
5
(11
/
-6)
Musicians cannot prevent the radio from playing their music. Which is honestly how it should be. The point of art is public enrichment. Sure, artists should receive compensation, but creating art to lock it away is fucking silly. If you've made it up share with the world, share it.
The problem is that art cannot sustain the livelihood of everyone who wishes to be an artist. At least not how we've gone about it for decades.
Upvote
6
(15
/
-9)
Which is what will probably adorn humanity's gravestone.
It could be shortened to "They didn't stop to think" and still preserve the messaging.
Upvote
9
(11
/
-2)
To be controversial, I don't see what the big deal is. There's already torrents of most modern music widely available for those who bother to collect music that way. Most people (98% of people) just stream out of sheer convenience.
Upvote
11
(18
/
-7)
Upvote
8
(8
/
0)
Sure if you're commercial enough in your own town. If you have to travel to tour, it's more expensive and complicated than ever (as are the tickets). Let's say you're in a well known metal band with a few million fans scattered around the world, as opposed to a pop star in a small country with far less followers, guess which one can make a living easier by playing live? Guess which one of them quite possibly still has a "real" job?
Apart from a few percent of artists, the only money in playing live comes from playing cover songs, weddings, and such. Getting paid to play someone else's music. Personally I think those people are even worse than pirates, but that's just me.
Upvote
-1
(6
/
-7)
I've got 20 usable over 4 drives. Density has improved since so I could get 40 over 4 now.
It's not a stretch to imagine a 40 drive NAS in someone's home. Not everyone's home, but someone with a bit of cash and a tech interest.
Upvote
7
(7
/
0)
I buy books digitally when they are available DRM free - so, mostly through libro.fm
When books are either:
- only available as a physical copy
- only available with DRM
- only available on Amazon
I cannot access them
For scenarios like this, where it is not possible to buy a digital copy without DRM... either one downloads from a shadow library like this, or simply never reads the work in question
Upvote
7
(13
/
-6)
Yes, they got a lot of files, but really, most people are not going to need or want to torrent a 300TB file. It's ridiculous. More interestingly and more important is the metadata. This article doesn't even mention the very interesting graphs and data they did from the analysis of the metadata. Like, do you even know what the most popular song of all time is? What are the genres with the most artists, etc. It's very interesting! It looks like currently you have to download the torrent to get to the metadata for now, but I assume they are working on making a search engine like they have for books.
- This is by far the largest music metadata database that is publicly available. ..... Our data is well-annotated: MusicBrainz has 5 million unique ISRCs, while our database has 186 million.
Upvote
3
(9
/
-6)
In the old days, only the rich could afford art. Commoners might have given a few cents to street performers, otherwise went to church for music and paintings. Furthermore, without steady financial support over the decades, art was mostly an amateur hobby and could not really transcend.
Anyway, piracy at this scale is obviously morally wrong. And the distribution cost is not zero: the consumer needs to pay for the infrastructure and the energy for reproducing the music/movie/whatever. And at this level of abundance, spending time sorting through a gazilion titles is also a cost.
Upvote
16
(19
/
-3)
Did they also grab the 30%+ of Spotify songs that are AI slop because Spotify is a shitty company that encourages that? I'm guessing so, coulda saved some hard drives. But then of course they'd be f@#$ing real musicians even harder.
Upvote
-10
(4
/
-14)
Uh, what?
Radio play is absolutely licensed by the artists. Where they hell are you getting this idea that radio stations aren't licensing the music they play?
Art, like all labor, belongs to the creator. They get to define the terms of consumption, not you. If I want to create the most beautiful painting ever created and then burn it, I can. It's mine. I'm not required to show it to you, and you're not entitled to see it. The same applies if I wanted to give a copy to everybody in the world except you. My labor, my terms.
Anything else, especially redefining the terms of your consumption unilaterally, is exploitation.
Last edited:
Upvote
17
(25
/
-8)
One interesting thing from the AA blog:
Based on the accompanying text, it suggests that most music currently being added to Spotify is AI generated. I found their blog post to be a bit unclear on their statistics, but if it's true, the implications are interesting. Does it mean we're heading into a future where basically all music, art, and literature are just AI slop? Will it be impossible for future generations to find good art and music in a vast, eternal forest of neural network noise?
Based on the accompanying text, it suggests that most music currently being added to Spotify is AI generated. I found their blog post to be a bit unclear on their statistics, but if it's true, the implications are interesting. Does it mean we're heading into a future where basically all music, art, and literature are just AI slop? Will it be impossible for future generations to find good art and music in a vast, eternal forest of neural network noise?
Upvote
23
(24
/
-1)
Hmmm, is that include the triple damages thing for when it was done on purpose?
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
I'd do it more too, if the music industry respected online user libraries.
Removal after purchase should never happen (except for extreme cases, but with refunding). Delisted titles should always remain for previous owners.
Yes I can download the files, but I want my purchases to not silently disappear too. Otherwise what's the point.
Last edited:
Upvote
16
(17
/
-1)
I don't agree with the scraping (for tech-bros), but at least I wish they did it before 2022..One interesting thing from the AA blog:
Based on the accompanying text, it suggests that most music currently being added to Spotify is AI generated. I found their blog post to be a bit unclear on their statistics, but if it's true, the implications are interesting. Does it mean we're heading into a future where basically all music, art, and literature are just AI slop? Will it be impossible for future generations to find good art and music in a vast, eternal forest of neural network noise?
Btw yes, without some kind of regulation or limitation (if it's even possible at this point), any future real creation will be drown in an ocean of AI slop. There won't even be any point to create something new, as it will get cloned immediately.
Many people warned about these problems beforehand, but as usual, nobody listened.
Last edited:
Upvote
11
(12
/
-1)
Upvote
-1
(1
/
-2)