this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

What damages? Did people stop paying for their subscription because of the site having metadata? This is fucking pathetic... If people cancel their subscription because of the law suit will the lawyers he forced to sue themselves for damages?

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 153 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Shocking. Absolutely riveting outcome that wasn't expected whatsoever. /s

That being said though, the weirder part for me is the fact that apparently they weren't able to obtain the operatives behind the website. So this was essentially a court case that was filed, put into session and then given judgment without even ever identifying the defendants that are on trial.

That seems really weird to me.

[–] Yosmonkol@piefed.social 8 points 3 days ago

A 'default judgement' is supposed to encourage appearance in court since ignoring a suit results in an automatic lose.

[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 128 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Hopefully non-US registrars and governments will stand up to this abuse.

Those labels didn't suffer any damage. That's all money to line their pockets and push more AI slop, not to benefit human creators.

[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 93 points 4 days ago (1 children)

On the bright side, they're unlikely to see a penny from it, and have incurred lawyer costs and time.

[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 4 days ago (2 children)

True. Hopefully they spent lots on outside law firms. They'll get paid unless they stupidly said they'll just take a cut of the damages, like injury firms do.

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 10 points 3 days ago

It's likely already budgeted for, so if it wasn't used for this attack, it would have gone to another fruitless attack. It's how they do business these days. The money isn't important. It's keeping the illusion of risk to pirating and thus illusion of value of their product. Basically, part of their marketing budget.

[–] Gerudo@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 days ago

I'm sure it'll be a tax right off

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 4 days ago

Exactly. Spotifys value is in the convenient access to the content and its playlist curation. Who cares if all the music got downloaded, they didn't lose one single customer from it.

[–] musket528@sopuli.xyz 31 points 3 days ago (2 children)

bro these freaks would better be paying more to their artists instead of lawyers to sue anonymous mfs who don't even care💀

[–] Chais@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

Lawyers have the better ROI.

[–] Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago

Yes, as if they ever get that hypothetical money from Anna 🤣 it is just wasted money

[–] unabart@sh.itjust.works 50 points 4 days ago

Meanwhile, on Epstein Island...

[–] SnoringEarthworm@sh.itjust.works 41 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Tl;dr: It's "give us $300 million (which we know you won't do), or we'll order everyone involved in hosting your site to give up your name and address."

For now, the monetary judgment is mostly a victory on paper, as recouping money from an unknown entity is impossible. For this reason, the music companies also requested a permanent injunction.

Permanent Injunction Targets Domains In addition to the damages award, Rakoff entered a permanent worldwide injunction covering ten Anna’s Archive domains: annas-archive.org, .li, .se, .in, .pm, .gl, .ch, .pk, .gd, and .vg.

Domain registries and registrars of record, along with hosting and internet service providers, are ordered to permanently disable access to those domains, disable authoritative nameservers, cease hosting services, and preserve evidence that could identify the site’s operators.

The judgment names specific third parties bound by those obligations, including Public Interest Registry, Cloudflare, Switch Foundation, The Swedish Internet Foundation, Njalla SRL, IQWeb FZ-LLC, Immaterialism Ltd., Hosting Concepts B.V., Tucows Domains Inc., and OwnRegistrar, Inc.

Anna’s Archive is also ordered to destroy all copies of works scraped from Spotify and to file a compliance report within ten business days, under penalty of perjury, including valid contact information for the site and its managing agents. That last requirement could prove significant, given that the identity of the site’s operators remains unknown.

A Way Out, at a Price In theory, Anna’s Archive has the option to prevent the domain suspension. The permanent injunction allows the site to seek relief from this measure, after showing that it has paid the full $322 million damages award and complied with all injunctive obligations.

That’s an unlikely option, to say the least. At the same time, however, it is not guaranteed that the site’s domain names will be suspended.

As reported previously, several domain names, including the Greenland-based .gl version, are linked to registries and registrars outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. court. As such, they previously did not comply to the preliminary injunction, and it is unknown whether the latest order changes that.

[–] quips@slrpnk.net 35 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Why are we working with centralized domain registers that capitulate to governments like this?

I think you answered your own question.

[–] pglpm@lemmy.ca 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

entered a permanent worldwide injunction

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 days ago
[–] eleijeep@piefed.social 35 points 4 days ago (1 children)

AFAIK they haven't even posted the music. Only the metadata.

[–] Willoughby@piefed.world 19 points 4 days ago

5 years later

"What music? It was all a bluff."

[–] CorrectAlias@piefed.blahaj.zone 35 points 4 days ago

Don't they need to find the owner to actually do the fine?

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 24 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Spotify and record labels have headquarters…

[–] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 19 points 4 days ago (2 children)

…and making molotovs is easy, from what I hear.

[–] far_university1990@reddthat.com 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

One part coke, two part rum.

Do not, i repeat, DO NOT exchange the first for heating oil and the second for gas.

Danke Michael Elf Mayer.

[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 7 points 4 days ago

Cheaper than this lawsuit, for sure.

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

I recently had this conversation in another community and realized that I have too much to lose. 💀 How about just keep seeding? 🤣

[–] dansemacabreingalone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They have names and addresses

You do realize there are things you can do other than kill them? With a megaphone a caltrop a flaming bag of dog shit a hammer a really strong speaker...

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] dansemacabreingalone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Also, they often have children. Children bully other children and can be bribed for very small amounts of money. No mercy. If they want justice they can start.

This is getting out of hands. Good night. My cyber waifu is waiting for me.

[–] 000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 days ago

Time to get an onion?