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The open-source library and search engine Anna\u2019s Archive has been ordered to pay Spotify and the three of the world\u2019s largest music labels $322 million in damages after it to have scraped the entirety of the streaming platform\u2019s library of music.<\/p>\n
Spotify, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, sued Anna\u2019s Archive in January for a slightly comical $13 trillion. They alleged Anna’s Archive had illegally scraped 86 million songs \u2014 a significant chunk of all the music on the planet \u2014 and intended to make them available for download via BitTorrent. At the time, Spotify the scraping a “brazen theft of millions of files containing nearly all of the world\u2019s commercial sound recordings.”<\/p>\n
In a since-deleted blog post, Anna’s Archive stated the scraping was an act of preservation. Still, a New York federal judge sided with the plaintiffs after the archive’s anonymous operator failed to respond to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The court order finding Anna’s Archive guilty of direct copyright infringement, breach of contract and violation of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) was filed on April 14. A further claim of violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was dismissed by the judge.<\/p>\n
The total breakdown of damages includes $7.5 million to each of Sony and Universal Music and $7.2 million to Warner Music, with the remaining $300 million going to Spotify. The latter figure amounts to $2,500 for each of the 120,000 scraped music files already made available by Anna\u2019s Archive. The remainder of the 86 million files were due to be released to the public at a later date.<\/p>\n
The court also ordered Anna\u2019s Archive to “immediately destroy all copies and phonorecords of any work \u2018scraped,\u2019 downloaded, copied or otherwise extracted from Spotify,” but whether it actually does this, or indeed hands over a penny of the damages, remains to be seen. The bizarre reality of this case is that the person (or people) behind Anna\u2019s Archive remains a mystery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n