**Spotify Disables Accounts After Massive Music Scrape**

Imagine having access to every song ever released on the popular streaming platform Spotify – that's exactly what one open-source group claimed to have achieved. But their actions didn't go unnoticed, and now the tables are turned.

Anna's Archive, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving humanity's knowledge and culture, has come under fire for scraping 86 million songs and metadata from Spotify without permission. The group published a massive cache of files online, claiming it was an "humble attempt" to create a music archive for preservation.

However, Spotify didn't take kindly to the move. In response to the scrape, the streaming giant disabled the user accounts responsible for the unlawful activity. According to a spokesperson, these accounts engaged in "stream-ripping" – extracting music from the platform without permission – over a period of months using third-party accounts.

"We've identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping," said the Spotify representative. "We've implemented new safeguards for these types of anti-copyright attacks and are actively monitoring for suspicious behavior."

The spokesperson emphasized that Anna's Archive did not reach out to Spotify before publishing the files, nor did they consider it a "hack" of the platform. Instead, the group simply exploited a vulnerability in Spotify's system.

Anna's Archive has a stated mission to preserve knowledge and culture, regardless of format. In their blog post about the cache, they wrote: "Sometimes an opportunity comes along outside of text. This is such a case. A while ago, we discovered a way to scrape Spotify at scale. We saw a role for us here to build a music archive primarily aimed at preservation."

Spotify has consistently stood against piracy and copyright infringement, working closely with industry partners to protect creators' rights. In this case, they're taking steps to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

The incident raises important questions about the limits of open-source activity and the boundaries between preservation and piracy. As technology continues to advance and platforms like Spotify continue to grow, these issues are likely to become increasingly relevant.