A computer hacker has been jailed for 18 months after stealing unreleased songs by British pop star Ed Sheeran and American rapper Lil Uzi Vert.
The string, the City of London police and the United States authorities joined hands to investigate the case immediately after the musician's management company reported that an individual known as Spirdmark had hacked into the cloud-based accounts of the artists in question.
Adrian Kwiatkowski, aged 23 from Ipswich in southern England, hacked the account to sell their songs on the darkweb for cryptocurrency rewards, which now generate 131,000 pounds ($147,000).
Kwiatkowski was described as a self-important person who disregarded the hard work of the musicians producing the piece in order to earn some money for himself, stressed Joanne Jakymec of the Crown Prosecution Service.
As such, Kwiatkowski was sentenced at Ipswitch Crown Court after pleading guilty in August to 14 copyright offenses and three counts of computer misuse.
It is understood that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office identified the IP address of the device used by the hacker as being from his home address when launching an investigation in 2019.
As a result, Kwiatkowski was arrested by the Intellectual Property Crime Unit of the City of London Police after further investigation.
