Adrian Kwiatkowski, a resident of Hampton Road in Ipswich, has been ordered to pay £101,053 within three months, after being found guilty of selling unreleased music by Ed Sheeran and Lil Uzi Vert in exchange for cryptocurrency. The hacker had gained unauthorised access to the performers’ digital accounts and had amassed 565 audio files, including songs by Sheeran and Vert. Following an investigation by the Police Intellectual Crime Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police, the court granted a confiscation order and gave the defendant three months to make the payment, failing which he will face an additional 18 months’ imprisonment. The order is significant in that it represents the first time PIPCU has secured a confiscation order of cryptocurrency.
Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt from PIPCU at City of London Police said in a statement that “Kwiatkowski executed a complex scheme to sell creative content that he did not own. Not only did he cause several musicians and their production companies significant financial harm, he deprived them of the ability to release their own work.” The investigation began in 2019 after the management companies of several musicians reported that an individual – known online as Spirdark – had accessed a series of accounts and was selling saved content. The investigation linked Kwiatkowski to the email address used to set up Spirdark’s cryptocurrency account and identified the IP address of the device used to hack one of the accounts as his home address.
Melissa Morgia, Director of Global Content Protection and Enforcement at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), said: “We welcome the recent developments in this case. This type of criminal activity jeopardises the work of artists and the efforts of the teams of people supporting with the creation and release of their music.”
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