Spotify and the Big Three labels have filed a record-breaking $13 trillion lawsuit against Anna’s Archive over a massive music data scrape. Find out what this means for the future of digital music.
  • foodandart@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2 months

    The fact that Anna’s Archive isn’t responding to the court tells me they couldn’t give a shit about the lawsuit.

    Glorious.

  • veee@lemmy.caEnglish
    2 months

    And how much of that hypothetical $13 Trillion would be shared the poor, poor artists?

    • red_bull_of_juarez@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2 months

      When this whole thing with Lily Allen was a thing, where she got more from posting feet pic on OnlyFans than from Spotify, someone posted an article that said Spotify is paying out like 150k-200k per month just for her streams. And yet only a tiny fraction of that ends up with her. Music labels fucking suck.

    • excral@feddit.orgEnglish
      2 months

      There are 15.43 million artist on spotify, so they’d get about $836,000 each.

      • Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        2 months

        Less Spotify’s share, and the record label’s share, and the lawyer’s share…and of course they’d give the artists with the most streams a bigger share (they’re the ones with the labels who get a big cut).

        So about tree fiddy.

    • FiskFisk33@startrek.websiteEnglish
      2 months

      Wouldn’t that be somewhere along the lines of $1000 per person, if divided over every single person in the world?

  • Tiger666@lemmy.caEnglish
    2 months

    Is this the music industry asking for more than all the money in the world again?

    Yes, I did say again.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
    2 months

    $13.000.000.000.000

    Like, are we 12 now? I too would come up with these bazonker numbers at that age.

    Fuck Spotify,fuck the current legal system that got us here

  • LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2 months

    Friendly reminder that streaming services have negatively impacted artists and art cultivation. Headbanging while blackout drunk at a dive bar gig, without directly giving the band(s) a penny, would help them more than their semiannual Spotify payout

    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.netEnglish
      2 months

      One of my favorite memories is inviting both my best friends and coworkers to a metal show at Saint Vitus, both groups hitting it off and making new friends, chatting with the bands at the merch table, and eating enough pizza to vomit on the sidewalk the moment I stepped outside.

  • slothrop@lemmy.caEnglish
    2 months

    If the litigants suffered these tremendous losses bc of AA, can they not deduct these losses from their taxes?

    Oh, wait…

  • Feyd@programming.devEnglish
    2 months

    These numbers are always shitty napkin math that assumes every pirate would be a paying customer even though a lot of them don’t have the money to even spend as much as they calculate, would just skip jumping through all the hoops they’ve created or don’t even have a legal way to purchase in their country. Completely brazen lies every time

    • bufalo1973@piefed.socialEnglish
      2 months

      And many will download just to hoard and not listen to that music ever. Like those “100 greatest hits from…” where you don’t know half of them and don’t like half of the ones you know.

  • ɯᴉuoʇuɐ@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    2 months

    Apparently it’s legal and acceptable to demand, through a court, enough money to destroy the world economy.

    Seriously, if I were the judge I’d throw out the lawsuit until they come up with a remotely realistic number. As it is, it makes the whole lawsuit look like a joke.

  • SpikesOtherDog@ani.socialEnglish
    2 months

    Weird, I wasn’t aware that Spotify OWNED this music. I’m fairly certain they they only license it.

    • ranzispa@mander.xyzEnglish
      2 months

      I guess if I were an artist I’d look at this and feel justified suing Spotify for 1 billion dollars for the lack of protection of my music.

      • tatterdemalion@programming.devEnglish
        2 months

        I assume any contracts detailing the guarantees of Spotify’s DRM are clear that it’s not Fail-Safe.

        • SpikesOtherDog@ani.socialEnglish
          2 months

          A hole that allowed people to download songs and one that allowed someone to download the entire collection are two different things.

  • REDACTED@infosec.pubEnglish
    2 months

    we have stood with the artist community against piracy

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but Anna’s archive is not giving you song downloads, but rather metadata

    over a massive music data scrape

    So when are you going to sue AI companies?

    • far_university1990@reddthat.comEnglish
      2 months

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but Anna’s archive is not giving you song downloads, but rather metadata

      200gb meta, 300tb music. Just 300tb not released yet. Might be, might not.

      So when are you going to sue AI companies?

      I think some sue suno and settle for money. And GEMA (germany) sue openai for songtext.

    • cyberwolfie@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2 months

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but Anna’s archive is not giving you song downloads, but rather metadata

      Were they not going to release the songs as well? They just started with the metadata?

      ETA: Yes, this is from their blog post about it:

      The data will be released in different stages on our Torrents page:

      [X] Metadata (Dec 2025)
      [ ] Music files (releasing in order of popularity)
      [ ] Additional file metadata (torrent paths and checksums)
      [ ] Album art
      [ ] .zstdpatch files (to reconstruct original files before we added embedded metadata)

      • Naich@lemmings.worldEnglish
        2 months

        You can’t sue people for something they haven’t done yet. Presumably if and when the actual music files are released the damages will go up proportionally - probably to something like $(volume of the universe / Planck distance^3)

        • cyberwolfie@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2 months

          I am not sure the shareholders will accept such a meager compensation. Did you include emotional damage in your estimate?

        • cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2 months

          You can’t

          No. Because you’re meat. Not a real person with articles of incorporation and a robust legal department. Wake the fuck up.

    • cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2 months

      sue companies

      I don’t understand. This sentence does not parse. Thats like sending an email to the legal department of my kidneys.

  • fyrilsol@kbin.melroy.org
    2 months

    I had a double take on that number they’re asking for.

    $13 Trillion? Geez, fucking greedy much? Not that they haven’t been greedy before, but we’re used to seeing millions and billions that are asked per track (technically they’d ask ridiculous sums of like $10,000 ~ even $100,000 per track in the past). But this just glaringly demonstrate how greedy these fucks really are and they just gotta tell everyone about it.

    I still say it was dumb of Anna to bother with Spotify but I like the defiance of just not caring.

    • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2 months

      I mean, is Anna’s archive under risk even? Yeah, worst case they can get every major DNS to ban them, but that won’t stop them from being accessible. And if they operate in a country that doesn’t give a shit, they won’t face consequences,especially if their opsec is good enough

      Not to mention, things are backed up with torrents. If their servers get raided they would be able to restart where they left off

      In my eyes, if you got the chance at something major like spotify’s entire library, you take it.

  • etherphon@midwest.socialdeleted by creatorEnglish
    2 months

    Lol, who’d they consult on that number, Joe Rogan? Fuck Spotify, another leech company getting rich off the talent of others.

    • RainbowBlite@piefed.caEnglish
      2 months

      According to the article, $150,000 is the maximum damages allowed per track. So $150,000/track * 86,000,000 tracks is around $13 Trillion. So they are asking for the maximum that the law allows.

      They could ask for infinity billion dollars for all it matters; you can’t get blood from a stone.

      • etherphon@midwest.socialdeleted by creatorEnglish
        2 months

        Ah, it’s just such a wild number, I’m sure it’s meant as a scare tactic but it’s really more of an ‘sure ok buddy’.

  • e8d79@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    2 months

    That’s about as realistic as the Russian court that fined Google for two undecillion roubles.

  • Katherine 🪴@piefed.socialEnglish
    2 months

    A reminder you can donate to AA though a multiple number of ways including a simple Amazon gift card and it takes less than 5 minutes.