A hacker who pocketed £42,000 selling unreleased music from leading musicians on the dark web has been spared jail.
Skylar Dalziel, 22, of Luton, has been sentenced to 21 months in prison, suspended for two years, for 14 counts relating to the trading of copyrighted music without the consent of the recording artists or label.
In a raid of her home last January, police discovered hard drives containing up to 291,941 music tracks, including unreleased songs by Coldplay, Shawn Mendes, Melanie Martinez, Taylor Upsahl, and Bebe Rexha.
She had obtained the music by illegally accessing several cloud storage accounts linked to the artists.
Police also found a spreadsheet showing she had sold the tracks to several customers.
An investigation had been launched the previous year after the recording industry experts at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry contacted the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police.
The Recording Industry Association of America supplied evidence showing that Dalziel had purchased six music tracks on the dark web which were unreleased and not available for sale and linked to three different record labels. These purchases were made using Bitcoin.
A review of Dalziel’s PayPal account and bank account showed that she had received payments worth a total of £42,049 from April 2021 to January 2023, police said.
She was handed the suspended sentence at Luton Crown Court on Friday, having pleaded guilty to nine copyright offences and four computer misuse offences.
She was also ordered to complete 180 hours unpaid work and 10 rehabilitative activity days.
The court ordered the forfeiture and destruction of hard drives and other equipment associated with the offending.
Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt, from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police, said: “Stealing copyrighted material for your own financial gain is illegal. 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.
“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.”
Richard Partridge of the Crown Prosecution Service said: “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.”
