Ariana Grande Sues Hackers Over Unreleased Music Leaks
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- Ariana Grande filed suit Monday in Los Angeles against unnamed John Does, alleging phishing and hacking schemes caused "unlawful and egregious theft, dissemination, and exploitation" of unreleased music and footage.
- The lawsuit outlines a pattern stretching back to Grande's 2011 debut, claiming hackers in 2019 stole login credentials for a photographer's Dropbox account to access her unreleased content.
- In 2020, defendants hacked a collaborating producer's mobile device, obtaining unreleased masters, demos, and recording-session footage that were then sold for "significant sums of money."
- In 2023 alone, hackers accessed and leaked 45 of Grande's unreleased songs, with the suit alleging hundreds of total leaks over the course of her career.
- In 2024, hackers allegedly created a Gmail account and domain impersonating one of Grande's photographers to trick a digital technician into sending unreleased photos.
- Grande's legal team filed the suit specifically to "uncover the identities of these currently unknown and unscrupulous individuals" and deter future leaks on behalf of herself and others.
Why it matters: The suit targets the broader marketplace for stolen celebrity music, not just the hackers themselves, seeking to unmask anonymous defendants who allegedly monetized Grande's unreleased catalog for over a decade. If the court compels discovery into the John Does, it could expose the distribution pipeline that has supplied leakers with buyers across the internet since 2011.
