Anna’s Archive is generally known as a meta-search engine for shadow libraries, helping users find pirated books and other related resources.

However, in December, the site announced that it had also backed up Spotify, which came as a shock to the music industry.

While Anna’s Archive initially released only Spotify metadata, and no actual music, the industry was on high alert. Over Christmas, Spotify and the major labels prepared a legal response in U.S. federal court.

Music Companies File Complaint Under Seal

On December 29, Spotify, UMG, Sony, Warner, and other labels filed their complaint at the Southern District of New York. They accuse Anna’s Archive of mass copyright infringement, breach of contract, DMCA violations, and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The lawsuit alleges that Anna’s Archive “brazenly” circumvented Spotify’s DRM. The site scraped 86 million music files and metadata for 256 million tracks from Spotify, which would all eventually be released publicly.

“…Anna’s Archive has threatened to imminently mass-release and freely distribute its pirated copies of the sound recording files to the public, without authorization from or compensation to the relevant rights holders. Such widespread and illegal infringement would irreparably harm the music industry..,” the complaint reads.

The complaint comes with a request for a preliminary injunction and a restraining order that aim to take Anna’s Archive offline. All these documents were filed under seal, as the shadow library might otherwise be tipped off and take countermeasures.

These documents were filed ex-parte and kept away from Anna’s Archive. According to Spotify and the labels, this is needed “so that Anna’s Archive cannot pre-emptively frustrate” the countermeasures they seek.

Restraining Order Takes Out Anna’s Domains

The lawsuit, which was unsealed recently, explains directly why Anna’s Archive lost several of its domain names over the past weeks. The .ORG domain was suspended by the U.S.-based Public Interest Registry (PIR) in early January, while a domain registrar took the .SE variant offline a few days later.

“We don’t believe this has to do with our Spotify backup,” AnnaArchivist said at the time, but court records prove them wrong.

The unsealed paperwork shows that the court granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) on January 2, which aimed to target Anna’s Archive hosting and domain names. The sealed nature of this order also explains why the .ORG registry informed us that it could not comment on the suspension last week.

While the .ORG and the .SE domains are suspended now, other domains remain operational. This suggests that the responsible registrars and registries do not automatically comply with U.S. court orders.

Injunction Also Targets Hosting Companies and Cloudflare

While the TRO was not public, a preliminary injunction that was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff on January 16th shows how broad the granted powers are.

After reviewing the evidence, and without a defense, the court concluded that the music companies’ copyright infringement claim will hold up. Therefore, the court ordered that Anna’s Archive is enjoined from ‘hosting, linking to, [or] distributing’ the copyrighted works.

Since it’s uncertain whether Anna’s Archive will comply, the injunction also targets many third-party intermediaries, including domain registries and registrars, hosting companies, and other service providers.

These companies should assist in stopping the infringing activity on Anna’s Archive.

To avoid uncertainty, the court explicitly mentions that the targeted companies include the Public Interest Registry; Cloudflare Inc.; Switch Foundation; The Swedish Internet
Foundation; National Internet Exchange of India; Njalla SRL; IQWeb FZ-LLC; Immaterialism Ltd.; Hosting Concepts B.V.; and Tucows Domains Inc.

The addition of Cloudflare stands out because the company operates a proxy service, without hosting Anna’s Archive’s content permanently. However, that was sufficient for the court to issue the order.

Spotify Downloads Disappear from Anna’s Archive

While the unsealed documents resolve the domain suspension mystery, it is only the start of the legal battle in court. It is expected that Spotify and the music companies will do everything in their power to take further action, if needed.

Interestingly, however, it appears that the music industry lawsuit may have already reached its goal. A few days ago, the dedicated Spotify download section was removed by Anna’s Archive.

Whether this removal is linked to the legal troubles is unknown. However, it appears that Anna’s Archive stopped the specific distribution of Spotify content alleged in the complaint, seemingly in partial compliance with the injunction’s ban on ‘making available’ the scraped files.

Whether this will mean that all troubles are now over has yet to be seen. For now, the copyright infringement allegations and other claims remain unresolved in court.

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A copy of the unsealed complaint filed by Spotify and the labels is available here (pdf). The preliminary injunction can be found here (pdf).

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.