Kathrine Frich
A new legal battle is unfolding between the global music industry and an online archiving project accused of copying vast amounts of copyrighted material.
The case could set a major precedent for how digital music is protected in the streaming era.
At the centre of the dispute is a platform that claims to support open access, but which industry giants say crossed a legal red line.
Lawsuit filed
Spotify, together with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, has filed a lawsuit against Anna’s Archive, a service previously known as Pirate Library Mirror.
According to court filings, the lawsuit was submitted on December 26, 2025, and was recently unsealed.
The companies allege that Anna’s Archive scraped around 86 million music files from across the internet and redistributed them through a peer-to-peer BitTorrent system without a central server.
The labels and Spotify argue this amounted to large-scale copyright infringement.
Scope of data
Court documents state that the archive amassed roughly 300 terabytes of data.
According to the plaintiffs, the collection represented about 99.6% of all songs streamed on Spotify as of late December.
The lawsuit claims the database included both popular tracks and recordings that had received little or no attention from listeners.
Anyone with sufficient storage capacity could download the files, the complaint alleges.
The music companies describe the operation as the “brazen theft of millions of files containing nearly every commercially available audio recording in the world.”
Financial claims
The lawsuit seeks damages amounting to roughly $13 billion.
This figure reflects claims of about $151,000 per file, combining alleged losses to both the record labels and Spotify.
According to the filing, the archive relied on a mass-downloading tool capable of extracting vast amounts of metadata, producing hundreds of millions of data entries linked to the music files.
Industry response
Spotify said the group behind Anna’s Archive was “engaged in unlawful scraping” and described its actions as “nefarious.”
The company said it had introduced new safeguards and was actively monitoring suspicious activity.
“From day one, we have stood with artists in the fight against piracy and actively collaborated with industry partners to protect creators and their rights,” Spotify said in a statement.
Court action
Alongside the lawsuit, the plaintiffs requested an injunction.
On January 20, US District Judge Jed S. Rakoff granted a preliminary order instructing hosting providers and domain registrars to disable access to several Anna’s Archive domains.
Despite the order, the services were still accessible at the time of reporting.
Anna’s Archive has denied allegations of piracy, arguing that it does not host copyrighted files directly.
The group has not publicly commented on the lawsuit or the preliminary injunction.
Sources: Court filings, Spotify statements, Dobreprogramy.
