Spotify Hit by Massive Music Theft: 300TB of Songs Leaked on Torrent, 86 Million Tracks Exposed

Popular music streaming platform Spotify has fallen victim to a major data breach. Around 300TB of music, including approximately 86 million tracks, were illegally copied and uploaded to torrent sites by a group called Anna’s Archive. Spotify has confirmed that it is investigating the incident, while the group claims their motive was to preserve music, not profit from it.

What Happened with Spotify?
According to reports, Anna’s Archive scraped nearly 300TB of Spotify’s music library, which amounts to 37% of the platform’s content. However, data suggests that 99% of users typically stream these songs, highlighting that the breach primarily affects Spotify’s storage and control over less popular tracks. Most files were originally in OGG Vorbis 160 kbps format, while lower-demand tracks were re-encoded at 75 kbps to save space. This demonstrates the scale and methodical nature of the theft.

Who is Anna’s Archive?
Anna’s Archive functions as an open-source search engine that consolidates content links from various shadow libraries across the internet. It primarily provides references rather than hosting content. Traditionally focused on digital knowledge like books, research papers, and articles, Anna’s Archive now appears to have expanded its scope to music, scraping large portions of Spotify’s library.

Beyond Music: Metadata Compromised
The breach also included 256 million pieces of raw metadata, encompassing album details, artist information, cover art, and 186 million unique ISRC codes (international identifiers for recordings).

Statements from Both Sides
Anna’s Archive positions itself as a digital archivist, arguing that mainstream platforms prioritize popular artists, leaving older or less-streamed music at risk of disappearing. Their goal, they say, is to create a comprehensive authoritative torrent archive of all music.

Spotify, meanwhile, told Android Authority that a third party has stolen public metadata, and the company is actively investigating the matter. Anna’s Archive has reportedly released the metadata publicly, while the audio files will be gradually released based on popularity, suggesting that the full impact will unfold over time.