Adrian Kwiatkowski, a hacker from Ipswich in England who stole two unreleased songs by Ed Sheeran, has been sentenced to 18 months in jail, in keeping with the BBC. Kwiatkowski bought Sheeran’s tracks, together with 12 different songs by American rapper Lil Uzi Vert, for cryptocurrency price £131,000 (US$148,000) on the darkish net. UK prosecutors mentioned Kwiatkowski acquired his fingers on the unreleased tracks by hacking into their cloud-based accounts. They did not specify which cloud companies these have been, however he stole from much more artists, as a result of authorities discovered 1,263 unreleased songs in his possession. 

American authorities launched an investigation again in 2019 after a number of musicians reported to the New York District Attorney’s workplace that somebody utilizing the identify Spirdark had hacked their accounts and was promoting their content material on-line. Investigators ultimately linked Kwiatkowski to the e-mail deal with Spirdark used with the cryptocurrency account concerned within the case. Further, his UK deal with was linked to an IP deal with that was present in relation to one of many hacked gadgets. 

When he was arrested, London police discovered seven gadgets that contained 1,263 unreleased songs by 89 completely different artists. Authorities discovered extra incriminating information in his arduous drive, together with a doc the place he detailed the strategy he used to hack into the victims’ accounts. They additionally discovered his Bitcoins, which he admitted to receiving in return for the songs. In all, he pled responsible to 19 prices that included copyright infringement and possessing legal property, sufficient to place him away for a year-and-a-half.