300TB Pirate Archive Claims to Hold Nearly Entire Spotify Music Catalog
A vast pirate archive has emerged online, claiming to contain almost every song ever streamed on Spotify, raising fresh concerns about large-scale music piracy and data security on the world’s biggest audio streaming platform.
The archive, reportedly assembled by Anna’s Archive, a shadow library search engine, is said to include audio files for about 86 million songs and metadata for roughly 256 million tracks. According to the group, this represents close to Spotify’s full catalog as of July 2025, making it potentially the largest music piracy collection ever disclosed.
Anna’s Archive said it scraped Spotify’s systems to build the database, storing much of the music in 160kbps OGG format, while lesser-known tracks were saved at lower quality. At nearly 300 terabytes, the torrent currently contains metadata only, but the group has indicated plans to release additional files, including audio, album artwork, and reconstruction data. It is also considering whether to allow individual song downloads in the future.
Spotify has acknowledged that a security loophole was exploited but has not detailed the scale of the breach. The company said it has since closed the vulnerability and banned an account linked to the scraping activity.
Beyond the piracy concerns, the group published observations drawn from the data, offering a rare glimpse into Spotify’s catalog. Its analysis suggests that a large share of tracks on the platform receive little to no attention, with claims that more than two-thirds of songs have never been streamed. The data also points to a sharp rise in new releases in recent years, which the group attributes partly to the growth of AI-generated music.
According to the findings, a small fraction of songs dominates listening activity, with the most-played tracks vastly outperforming tens of millions of others combined. The archive also highlights the prevalence of singles, multiple versions of the same songs, and a significant volume of explicit content.
While Spotify has moved quickly to shut down the access point used, questions remain over whether the archive can be fully contained or removed, given its size and the decentralized nature of torrent distribution.
