According to the The Adrian Kwiatkowski, an Ipswich hacker who stole two unreleased Ed Sheeran songs, was sentenced to 18-months in prison. BBC. Kwiatkowski sold Sheeran’s tracks, along with 12 other songs by American rapper Lil Uzi Vert, for cryptocurrency worth £131,000 (US$148,000) on the dark web. UK prosecutors claim that Kwiatkowski gained access to the unreleased songs by hacking into cloud-based accounts. Although they didn’t say which cloud services they were, Kwiatkowski allegedly stole from more artists than he did, as authorities discovered 1,263 unreleased tracks in his possession.
In 2019, American authorities opened an investigation after musicians reported to the New York State District Attorney’s office that Spirdark had hacked into their accounts and sold their content online. Kwiatkowski was eventually found to be linked to the email address Spirdark used for the cryptocurrency account. Kwiatkowski’s UK address was also linked with an IP address related to one of these hacked devices.
London police found seven devices with 1,263 unreleased tracks by 89 artists on his computer when he was detained. Further incriminating files were found in his hard disk, including a document detailing the hacking technique he used to access the accounts of the victims. They also discovered his Bitcoins which he claimed he received in return for the songs. He pleaded guilty to 19 criminal charges, including copyright infringement, possessing criminal property and evading justice, which was enough to send him to prison for over a year.
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