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submitted 1 month ago by Deep@mander.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world

Spotify and several major record labels, including UMG, Sony, and Warner, secured a $322 million default judgment against the unknown operators of Anna's Archive. The shadow library failed to appear in court and briefly released millions of tracks that were scraped from Spotify via BitTorrent. In addition to the monetary penalty, a permanent injunction required domain registrars and other parties to suspend the site's domain names.

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[-] DosDude@retrolemmy.com 55 points 1 month ago

We sued people. Well, I think. Since the people are unknown. They didn't show up, so we won. Now unknown people need to pay whatever we say they should pay.

Great job, let's pat ourselves on the back. We fought the man and won.

[-] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 month ago

We fought the man and won.

I think Anna is a woman's name. /s

[-] Patrikvo@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

Be quiet about that, if they hear it'll reduce their list of suspects by half!

[-] toynbee@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago


Presented without comment.

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[-] from_D4rkness@lemmy.world 49 points 1 month ago

AI still out here taking everything. Only the corporations can steal. Maybe they didn't like that it was then given to people for free, instead sold again.

[-] testaccount372920@piefed.zip 18 points 1 month ago

To go even further, Anna's Archive has a section for LLM training that the big ones use. Apparrently it's okay if they use data that has been ruled to be illegal.

[-] artyom@piefed.social 6 points 1 month ago

Maybe they didn't like that it was then given to people for free

Yeah, I mean, it's mostly that.

[-] raicon@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month ago

They did it guys!!! Piracy no more /s

Only billionaires and friends allowed

[-] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Gee I wonder why warehouses keep catching fires lately…

[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 month ago

In addition to the damages award, Rakoff entered a permanent worldwide injunction covering ten Anna’s Archive domains

Bahaha, Fuck Off. The world doesn't recognize your authority.

[-] msage@programming.dev 3 points 1 month ago

Watch how many will bend the knee

[-] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago

That was quick. This took a few months, while artists have been dealing with AI stealing their work for years now.

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Always remember that, in the eyes of the law, the real crime is being poor.

[-] prex@aussie.zone 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

ChatGPT play a song that sounds suspiciously like enter sandman.

[-] eleefece@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

So, this sentence says it's actually illegal to download copyrighted material through shadow libraries, I get it and now I wonder what could this mean for Meta's AI case?

[-] bfg9k@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

They don't care and will continue to do it.

[-] dasrael@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 month ago

Lawyers be making money filing lawsuits against ghosts. Happy hunting boys.

[-] exaybachae@startrek.website 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Funny, the statute $2500 should be for the circumvention act, which was likely singular, not per file obtained during or as a result of the act. And the $150k is ridiculous in and of itself, even if for all files obtained. What a strange world we live in.


Spotify built a system of control in order to profit a few at a cost to many, perhaps everyone else.

Someone broke that system in order to benefit many, possibly at the cost of some of their ability to profit from their system of control--if they didn't lose customers, or prospective customers, they didn't experience any financial loss, or a loss in their ability to maintain their system of control (which is still very much in place and working).

Either way, nobody was hurt.

But the person who acted selflessly to benefit of society in general is punished.

Because... We, as a society, celebrate and work effortlessly to maintain complex systems of abuse in order to satisfy our greed or the greed of others. All despite being taught in school not to lie to and bully each other, and to share with and care for each other.

As a species: We are bat shit fucking crazy!

[-] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

No, to enable (in the addiction sense) the greed of others. Not "satisfy." Because it can never be satisfied: they will take and take and take and take until there is nothing left, and still demand more.

[-] shirasho@feddit.online 7 points 1 month ago

The US music industry has always been bullshit, going all the way back to record labels. I would feel bad for the artists, but I don't give two shits about the distributor who acts like they own the music and feels entitled to all monetary rewards for someone else's work.

[-] LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago

Is this a reverse play? Does that ruling leave open the door to similar rulings against llms? Why did they offer no contest at all?

Why did they offer no contest at all?

Likely because contesting it would require doxxing themselves. The site’s admins survive on anonymity. And you can’t exactly be anonymous in court filings.

[-] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Fuck Spotify and their ICE recruitment ad bullshit.

[-] webkitten@piefed.social 5 points 1 month ago

I hope every music industry executive gets run over by a Mack Truck.

[-] Willdrick@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Nah, thats too quick

[-] timewarp@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

These greed demons make me more of a socialist everyday. America is fucked in this AI race. If only the .001%% can create AI by owning all the property rights, how do they expect a society to collaborate & innovate?

[-] ji88aja88a@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

does this set precedence for online platforms to sue AI platforms for all the data collection? /s

[-] Samsy@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

So uhm, what's the new name? Asking for a friend.

[-] Jackhammer_Joe@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

They used a neat trick and just spelled the first name backwards! annA instead of Anna!

[-] foliolus@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

you can check these mirror lists for alternatives when the current domains go down

https://shadowlibraries.github.io/

https://open-slum.org/

[-] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 2 points 1 month ago

Anna's Archive: The New One

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 month ago

Anna's Archive 2: The quest for more knowledge

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 points 1 month ago

It says the operators are unknown, but also failed to appear in court. If they don't even know who the operators are, how would they supoena them to come to court in the first place? 🤨

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[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The real judgement was to force the domain registrars to comply since they have something they can take. The archive can just move to new domains.

[-] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Last I heard they only released the data on what they had, when did they release the actual music?

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

They never released music, just metadata. It doesnt matter. This injunction is just legal posturing. They have no jurisdiction to tell foreign domain registrars to do anything. It takes an actual cop walking in on a data center to finally seize a site (surrender hard drives, reroute domains, etc.) If the server is in another country, it takes years to go through the red tape. If the country is not collaborative, it will never happen, specially since piracy is seen as a very low priority issue in the grand scheme of cyber crime.

[-] phx@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

So uh, do they have a list of domains that should be blocked then? One that we can check out to... uh... ensure our kids aren't going there and stuff.

[-] Arklese1zure@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

I recently cancelled my Spotify subscription and just downloaded all my music. It's a bit of initial effort, but the experience is so much better.

I wonder how far will people need to be pushed before price and restrictions outweigh convenience.

[-] Jessvj93@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Yep same here, used an extension to read my Spotify library and turn them into youtube .mp3's, then went in and redownloaded any that got messed up or were live versions not the album song, and now I just add songs using NewPipe as they come up!

[-] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I like their attitude.

[-] sturmblast@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

"Scraped from Spotify via Bitorrent" OK. That's not how that works.

[-] GamingChairModel@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

briefly released millions of tracks that were scraped from Spotify via BitTorrent.

That's just an awkward sentence construction but it makes sense: they released track via Bittorrent. The tracks were scraped from Spotify.

I sold my car that was purchased from a dealership via private party sale.

I charged my laptop that normally accepts 100W via a 20W phone charger.

I would've used a "which" phrase with commas to avoid the confusion, but the sentence as written is valid and makes sense.

I think it’s just poor wording. It says they released tracks that were scraped from Spotify via BitTorrent. I think the punctuation and sentence structure is awkward. I think what they were trying to say was more along the lines of “they scraped millions of tracks from Spotify, and released them via BitTorrent.”

Still not technically correct, because you don’t release things via BitTorrent. But it at least clarifies that the songs were first scraped, and then released via torrent.

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[-] nucleative@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

A default judgement just gives Spotify some leverage to try to collect money, property, and get injunctions. But as we know from the pirate bay cases, that's a losing whack-a-mole battle long term.

But it does make life a bit harder for Anna's archive unless they show up to fight back, which they probably won't.

[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I love it when they declare fantasy judgements that are never going to be paid.

[-] Saffire@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I wonder if that money goes on the company's balance sheets before it's paid.

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this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
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