How Spotify’s Premium Piracy Panic Played Out & What Pirates Did Next

Reports last week that Spotify had suddenly gone down worldwide were a little overblown.

The ‘outage’ may have felt that big to those affected, and it may have been of some comfort if everyone had the same problem; after all, nobody likes to suffer alone.

That doesn’t mean the perceived outage was insignificant or had limited geographical reach. Spotify has neither confirmed nor denied anything, it’s possible it never will. But something definitely happened.

Significant reports of Spotify ‘downtime’ began to surface around March 3rd and for the next several days, similar reports appeared on discussion platforms around the world. As the dust settled it became increasingly clear that this wasn’t a global Spotify outage. Indeed, there’s no evidence to show that legitimate users of Spotify were impacted at all.

Targeted Anti-Piracy Crackdown

All evidence points towards an international Spotify campaign to render its service inaccessible to those enjoying the ‘Premium’ ad-free experience without paying for it.

The precise scope of the apps targeted is unknown, but Android users appear to represent the bulk of those affected, with ‘modded’ or ‘cracked’ versions of the Spotify client cited most often. Data from Google Trends reveals a worldwide search interest peak last week higher than any other Spotify-related event in the last 90 days.

The same search reveals a peak of similar size and shape across multiple countries where an ‘outage’ was reported last week.

Google Trends search data is available for periods of up to 7 days, but then jumps to 30 days and beyond. The image below shows the top 5 countries for ‘Spotify’ searches in the preceding 30 days and, for comparison, the same search for 7 days.

The change in position on the right may suggest a phased approach by Spotify; 7 days may be too short to account for all searches conducted in Italy if it was one of the first targets last week. This may have allowed Ukraine to take the top spot and made room for Poland and Moldova to enter the frame.

Was Spotify’s Crackdown The Cause?

A company of Spotify’s significance means that for one reason or another, making headlines is nothing particularly unusual. In this case there appears to be little doubt that the peak in interest last week was indeed linked to the disabling of the pirate apps.

The top 20 trending searches in the UK, linked to the initial searches above, are listed below. The overwhelming majority show direct interest in unofficial access, with at least half of the searches specifying particular pieces of software.

Searches in other regions indicate that solutions sought for the Spotify ‘outage’ ranged from the very direct, to the more flexible and creative.

Italy’s approach ranged from the easily translated ‘spotify premium apk ultima versione‘ to the specific ‘com.spotify.music apk arm64-v8a‘. Showing a desire to switch platforms if necessary, ‘come trasferire playlist da spotify a youtube music‘ (how to transfer playlist from Spotify to YouTube music) was also popular.

Over in Belarus, many searched for “спотифай скачать взлом” (Spotify download hack) while others sounded less optimistic with “почему спотифай не работает” (Why Spotify doesn’t work?).

In the United States, a Spotify tweak called ‘EeveeSpotify’ attracted significant attention. Like the now-defunct Spotilife before it, ‘EeveeSpotify’ signals to Spotify that the user has a Premium subscription. This is currently achieved by intercepting Spotify’s requests to load user data and then modifying the responses.

A popular search in Ukraine, believe it or not, is the only search that Spotify wants to see after this type of event. Faced with a Spotify blackout, Ukrainians searched for ‘підписка спотіфай‘ which translates to ‘Spotify subscription.”

New Modded/Cracked APK Files Appear Onine

Despite having other options, some users are only prepared to settle for a solution featuring the original Spotify app. New cracked/modded versions of the official Spotify Android app may have appeared online quite quickly, perhaps as early as March 4 or 5 when the ‘outage’ was still in its early stages.

From a purely functional perspective, modded Spotify APK files often claim to offer a complete (or near complete) Spotify experience, minus the cost of subscription. These APKs are fairly easily found online and straightforward to install. The major difficulty that concerns some more than others, is the age-old question of trust.

Gambling on Trust, Risk vs. Reward

Installing an APK from an unverified source carries significant risk. Once installed, users may find all promises have been kept but what actually happens inside users’ phones and tablets is hard to predict. With moderate effort, an average user should be able to learn enough about a modded APK to make a semi-informed decision, even if only based on how much risk they’re prepared to take.

On one side of the scale, free Spotify; on the other, a potential nightmare costing much more. The odds of the experience tipping in favor of one versus the other depends on both known and unknown factors.

Installing an unknown app from an unknown source is normal behavior for many pirates. One particularly popular Spotify app has been freely exchanged between Reddit users during the past few days. As one early installer put it, “Yes it seems to work.” At times like these, for some that’s more than enough.

Rolling the Spotify Dice

Whether there are multiple versions of the same app, or whether they just behave the same, is hard to tell without spending considerable time. What we can say for sure is that the handful we’ve seen didn’t always share the same hash. There might be good reasons for that but when hashes don’t match, further tampering has already been confirmed.

A test result published on Hybrid Analysis, for an APK that reportedly brings Spotify back to life, dates back six/seven days. The final verdict is one of “malicious” despite anti-virus vendors giving the file a clean bill of health on both Hybrid Analysis and Virus Total.

In our own tests, a similar (but not identical) APK resulted in three sets of reports, one of which exceeded 100 pages and revealed interesting ‘features’. It’s possible that the official Spotify app has features we’re yet to discover, such as the ridiculous ‘Jam’ mode inflicted on even the most loyal subscriber.

But did that have permission to read a phone’s contact lists, SIM card details, the content of every SMS, call logs, calendar entries, and then use the camera? In 2025, anything is possible, but it’s hard to imagine much good coming from that.

Yet for some, the idea of paying for music will be too difficult to overcome. And despite costing almost nothing, research may sound like too much hard work, even if it paid off handsomely in the end.

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