Premature release of new material, or material never intended for release, is considered some of the most damaging by artists and record labels, and while it can create a buzz, it robs the artists of their choice of when and what to release. Such leaks can happen anywhere in the supply chain and usually they happen at the end, during mass production of the physical disks and close to the release date.
The current case against a Swedish man is a little bit different as the accused man didn’t work in the industry like so many other leakers, but rather hacked the email addresses of major record labels including Sony, Warner, and Universal and obtained unreleased songs. Some of the named artists include Nicki Minaj, Chris Brown and Mary J Blige.
The accused then sold the stolen tracks to DJs around the world, after which they started to turn up in the public. The FBI got involved in the case and they tracked the money wires and IP tracks to Sweden where the local authorities arrested the 25-year-old man.
The prosecution claims that the man, who denies the charges, made around $12,000 from sales of the tracks. He will go on trial in Sweden next month and will face fines and up to two years in prison. There isn’t really any doubt that the record companies will be back after the trial seeking damages they believe has been done to them.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing us with this information
Image courtesy of RigaPortal
