Hacker stole unreleased tracks from Coldplay, Shawn Mendes and Bebe Rexha

An online hacker has pleaded guilty to stealing unreleased tracks from artists including Coldplay, Shawn Mendes and Bebe Rexha.

City of London Police claim that Skylar Dalziel, 22, of Winchester Gardens in Luton, made approximately £42,000 by selling the illegally acquired content online (via BBC).

Dalziel has admitted 11 copyright offences in Luton Crown Court and was sentenced on Friday (January 3) to 21 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 24 months.

Prosecutor Richard Partridge claimed that Dalziel “selfishly used their music to make money for herself by selling it on the dark web”, while police have made clear that “stealing copyrighted material for your own financial gain is illegal”.

Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt, of the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, added: “It jeopardises the work of artists and the livelihoods of the people who work with them to create and release their music.”

It is reported that Dalziel managed to access cloud-based storage accounts for the artists in question, with a compromised account coming to the attention of Sony Music Entertainment, who reported the matter to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in 2021. Roughly 40 unreleased tracks had been taken from the account and were being sold online.

Dalziel was arrested in January 2023 with police seizing three drives of music, containing a total of nearly 300,000 songs. Computer files showed she had received £42,049 between April 2021 and January 2023.

As well as counts of sale without copyright licence permission, Dalziel also pleaded guilty to one count of transferring criminal property and three counts of acquiring/using/possessing criminal property. In addition to her suspended sentence, she has been forced to undertake 180 hours of unpaid work.

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