A female dark web hacker who earned nearly £42,000 (Rs 44.75 lakh) by selling unreleased music of bands and musicians like Coldplay, Bebe Rexha, Melanie Martinez, Taylor Upsahl and Shawn Mendes has avoided jail, according to a report. IndependentThe woman, identified as Skylar Dalziel, 22, from Luton, has been sentenced to 21 months in prison, suspended for two years, at Luton Crown Court. In addition, he must also complete 180 hours of unpaid work and 10 rehabilitation activity days.
Ms Dalziel was facing 14 counts related to trading in copyrighted music without the consent of recording artists or labels. He pleaded guilty to nine copyright offenses and four computer misuse offences.
Richard Partridge, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said, “Dalziel had a complete disregard for the musician’s creativity and hard work in creating original songs, and the subsequent potential loss of earnings.”
“This type of activity impacts not only the artists but also the employees of the record companies involved. He selfishly used his music to make money for himself by selling it on the dark web.”
cloud access
He allegedly stole the tracks by illegally accessing multiple cloud storage accounts belonging to popular artists. A raid on his home in Winchester Gardens last January recovered a hard drive containing 291,941 songs.
Police told the court that a review of Ms Dalziel’s PayPal and bank accounts revealed she received payments totaling £42,049 between April 2021 and January 2023.
Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt, from the Intellectual Property Crime Unit, said, “Stealing copyrighted material for your own financial gain is illegal. It jeopardizes the work of artists and the livelihoods of the people who work with them to create and release their music. Puts you in danger.”
“It is estimated that this type of criminal activity contributes to the loss of more than 80,000 jobs each year.”
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Ms Dalziel’s operation was exposed after Sony Music Entertainment filed a complaint in 2021, notifying the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) that a cloud account linked to American artist Upsahl had been compromised and extracted. 40 unreleased tracks were being sold online. ,
IFPI and the Recording Industry Association of America managed to discover that an account on an online forum was selling songs not only belonging to Sony’s labels, but also those of companies such as Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.
