Spotify and the three major labels have won a $322 million default judgement against Anna\u2019s Archive, the open-source library and pirate activist group that planned to publicly release millions of music files scraped from Spotify\u2019s platform.<\/p>\n
The judgment comes after the unknown operator of Anna\u2019s Archive failed to respond to a lawsuit filed by Spotify, Universal Music Group (UMG), Warner Music Group (WMG) and Sony Music, which was made publicly available in January. The lawsuit was launched in response to Anna\u2019s Archive announcing in December that it had ripped 86 million songs<\/a> from Spotify and intended to create a \u201cpreservation archive\u201d for music by distributing the files via BitTorrent.<\/p>\n In its collective complaint, Spotify and Co described Anna\u2019s Archive\u2019s scraping activity as \u201cbrazen theft of millions of files containing nearly all of the world\u2019s commercial sound recordings.\u201d The shadow library later released torrents for almost three million music files<\/a> in February despite the legal ramifications it was facing.<\/p>\n The default judgment, issued on Tuesday by Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York, awards Spotify $300 million in damages, with UMG, WMG, and Sony Music awarded $22.2 million collectively. The ruling also includes a permanent injunction that requires internet service providers to block the Anna\u2019s Archive website, and an order for the shadow library to destroy all copies of works scraped from Spotify.<\/p>\n