Hacker Gets Suspended Prison Sentence for Selling Unreleased Music

[ultrabanisters 46,939]

posting here bc relevant to some threads..  

 

Spoiler

A dark web hacker who trousered £42,000 selling unreleased music from leading artists like Coldplay, Shawn Mendes and Melanie Martinez has avoided jail.

Skylar Dalziel, 22, stole tracks by illegally accessing several cloud storage accounts linked to the popular acts.

A raid of her home in Winchester Gardens, Luton last January, uncovered hard drives containing up to 291,941 songs.

Unreleased tracks by Chris Martin’s band Coldplay, Mendes, Melanie Martinez, Taylor Upsahl, and Bebe Rexha were found.

At Luton Crown Court, Dalziel was sentenced on Friday to 21 months in prison, suspended for two years, having admitted nine copyright offences and four relating to computer misuse.

Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt, from intellectual property crime unit at City of London Police, said: “Stealing copyrighted material for your own financial gain is illegal. 

Luxury Range Rover Sport & £50k Could Be Yours While Keeping Hearts Beating. Enter NowOmaze UK

Unexpected Compensation for St James's Place ClientsPacific Legal

“It jeopardises the work of artists and the livelihoods of the people who work with them to create and release their music. 

“It’s estimated that this type of criminal activity contributes to over 80,000 job losses each year.

BEBE REXHA (PA)

PA ARCHIVE

“Today’s sentencing sends a clear message that we have the ability and tools to locate cyber criminals and hold them to account for their actions. 

“We believe Dalziel was working with suspects overseas and are now working to identify them.”

READ MORE

Dark web dealer who sold unreleased Coldplay tracks spared jail

Sabrina Carpenter to Oasis: the biggest London gigs in 2025

Glastonbury profits more than double amid ‘corporate’ criticism

Man appears in court charged with Christmas Day double murder

Specialist Prosecutor Richard Partridge, of the Crown Prosecution Service, added: “Dalziel had complete disregard for the musician’s creativity and hard work producing original songs and the subsequent potential loss of earnings.

“This type of activity doesn’t just impact on the artists themselves but also on employees of the record companies involved. She selfishly used their music to make money for herself by selling it on the dark web.”

In June 2021, Sony Music Entertainment reported to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry that a cloud account owned by US artist Upsahl had been compromised. A total of 40 unreleased tracks had been extracted from the account and were being sold online.

The IFPI and the Recording Industry Association of America identified that an account on an online forum was being used to sell unreleased music from artists represented by Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group

The IFPI linked the account to Dalziel and referred the case to PIPCU in June 2022.

Police also found a spreadsheet showing she had sold the tracks to several customers.

A review of Dalziel’s PayPal account and bank account proved she had received payments worth a total of £42,049 from April 2021 to January 2023, police said.

The court ordered the forfeiture and destruction of hard drives and other equipment associated with the offending.

 

lowk deserved why are you selling music that isnt yours..

 

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/dark-web-dealer-unreleased-coldplay-tracks-jail-b1202849.html

[Semafori 1,673]

Did they think they were untraceable, or were they just the average criminal getting caught because they're dumb

[American Whore 51,836]

not @111 being sentenced today 

 

Spoiler

jk i'm just being catty 

 

[Beauty King 1,763]

This girl used to post a ton on Leaked.cx and was a major menace there. Really rude, nasty person.

 

The authorities definitely did not find all her ill-gotten assets, either. She had tons of Ariana Grande material (none of which was mentioned in these articles and which I know for a fact made her a lot of money) and had claimed to have made over $150,000 selling hacked stuff, while the authorities only managed to track down £42,000.

[ultrabanisters 46,939]

2 minutes ago, Semafori said:

Did they think they were untraceable, or were they just the average criminal getting caught because they're dumb

honestly i think the mindset is that it is either a) victimless or b) something they think goes on so often they wont be caught. basically arrogance 

 

1 minute ago, Beauty King said:

This girl used to post a ton on Leaked.cx and was a major menace there. Really rude, nasty person.

 

The authorities definitely did not find all her ill-gotten assets, either. She had tons of Ariana Grande material (none of which was mentioned in these articles) and had claimed to have made over $150,000 selling hacked stuff, while the authorities only managed to track down £42,000.

@cityoflondonpolice omfgggg come get this evidence 

[American Whore 51,836]

1 minute ago, Beauty King said:

This girl used to post a ton on Leaked.cx and was a major menace there. Really rude, nasty person.

 

The authorities definitely did not find all her ill-gotten assets, either. She had tons of Ariana Grande material (none of which was mentioned in these articles) and had claimed to have made over $150,000 selling hacked stuff, while the authorities only managed to track down £42,000.

 

I'm sorry but like... if someone is actually this dumb to hack for unreleased material, then go sell it and use their real name and/or not know how to anonymize yourself online, she deserves it. dont get me wrong i love unreleased shit and leaks, but what a fucking idiot. 

[Waimea Bay 10,688]

I always thought stealing people's music and then profiting off it was...odd

[Beauty King 1,763]

Just now, American Whore said:

 

I'm sorry but like... if someone is actually this dumb to hack for unreleased material, then go sell it and use their real name and/or not know how to anonymize yourself online, she deserves it. dont get me wrong i love unreleased shit and leaks, but what a fucking idiot. 

She was just extremely arrogant and assumed nobody would care about the thefts, since so many other hackers are actively stealing material every day and rarely get caught.

 

Case in point: she was obsessed with the artist Upsahl and used to go into Upsahl’s Instagram livestreams to terrorize her by talking about her unreleased songs. It was actually psychotic behavior.

[Platinum Greenwich 13,920]

I wish someone would terrorize the Audio section with leaks!

[ionut 9,805]

i wonder if she had any lana

[Get Drunk 18,045]

QUICK YOU CAN HIDE IN MY BEDROOM @111 

[NikoGo 62,292]

Tbh as much as I enjoy leaked music as a fan, a lot of artists who have music leaked (Ari and Lana at the top of my head) are clearly upset (rightfully!) about it. 
 

it always seemed odd to me that people would steal someone else’s work, and then attempt to make a profit off of it

[White Hot 4Ever 503]

insiders jail time

[Get Drunk 18,045]

35 minutes ago, Beauty King said:

This girl used to post a ton on Leaked.cx and was a major menace there. Really rude, nasty person.

 

The authorities definitely did not find all her ill-gotten assets, either. She had tons of Ariana Grande material (none of which was mentioned in these articles and which I know for a fact made her a lot of money) and had claimed to have made over $150,000 selling hacked stuff, while the authorities only managed to track down £42,000.

When they ask you to testify

Spoiler

and you steal the right person will stay from the evidence locker

 

[J03 563]

36 minutes ago, Beauty King said:

This girl used to post a ton on Leaked.cx and was a major menace there. Really rude, nasty person.

 

The authorities definitely did not find all her ill-gotten assets, either. She had tons of Ariana Grande material (none of which was mentioned in these articles and which I know for a fact made her a lot of money) and had claimed to have made over $150,000 selling hacked stuff, while the authorities only managed to track down £42,000.

to be clear they said she made £42k over an 18 month period, not in total. They also said according to a spreadsheet, not that they had recovered that amount. 

[Get Drunk 18,045]

Just now, J03 said:

to be clear they said she made £42k over an 18 month period, not in total. 

If they found more, they would've just said more tho.

[J03 563]

Just now, Get Drunk said:

If they found more, they would've just said more tho.

No, they didn’t find this money, they found a spreadsheet tracker detailing transactions over that time frame. 

[Get Drunk 18,045]

5 minutes ago, J03 said:

No, they didn’t find this money, they found a spreadsheet tracker detailing transactions over that time frame. 

No, I know, but the other user was just saying that they definitely made much more than that, they only found the 42k they made.

[ivory almond 16,815]

JACK ANTONOFF VAULT INCOMING...

[Run Motorcycle 193]

Oh skyupsahl