A woman received a suspended sentence for selling unreleased songs online, including tracks from Coldplay and Shawn Mendes, totaling £42,000.
Luton: A 22-year-old named Skylar Taylor Dalziel got into some serious trouble for selling unreleased music from big names like Coldplay and Shawn Mendes. She hacked into cloud storage accounts and made around £42,000 by selling those tracks on the dark web. Yikes!
The police caught her thanks to some solid evidence from the Recording Industry Association of America. They linked her to an account that was selling music from artists under major labels like Sony and Warner. This all started when she stole 40 tracks from a US artist named Upsahl back in June 2021.
Dalziel was arrested in January 2023, and when the cops searched her place, they found three hard drives packed with nearly 300,000 music tracks. Among them were songs from Coldplay, Shawn Mendes, and others. She didn’t say much to the police, just kept answering “no comment.”
After looking into her PayPal and bank accounts, they found she had received over £42,000 from selling the music. She even transferred some of that cash to bank accounts in the US. The City of London Police are still trying to track down those connections.
In October, she admitted to nine copyright offenses and four computer misuse offenses at Luton Crown Court. She got a 21-month sentence, but it’s suspended for two years, plus 180 hours of community service.
Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt made it clear that stealing music is a big deal. It hurts artists and the people who help them create their work. He mentioned that this kind of crime leads to a lot of job losses every year.
Prosecutor Richard Partridge added that Dalziel didn’t care about the hard work artists put into their music. She just wanted to make a quick buck by selling it online. It’s a real shame for everyone involved.
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