American singer and actress Ariana Grande has made a significant breakthrough in the lawsuit filed against an unidentified group of cybercriminals — listed in the case as “John Does” — accused of infiltrating devices in her nearby environment to subtract and market unprecedented material, including music models, photographs and personal files.
Judge Mark H. Epstein, of the Los Angeles Supreme Court, passed a special order on Wednesday that allows the artist’s legal team to speed up the collection of confidential information through quotations to third parties. This resolution exempts lawyers from the usual wait period of 20 days, empowering them to immediately demand records and identifiers to web platforms and technology companies whose services would have been used to distribute the material or process illegal payments.
In his ruling, the magistrate determined that there was sufficient cause to authorize the emergency procedure, recognizing that it was impossible to advance the trial or formally notify the accused without previously accessing the technical information in the hands of these platforms.
According to the lawsuit filed in July, cybercriminals carried out targeted attacks on people from the nearby Grande circle to obtain unauthorized access to unpublished study models. Following access, the content was sold on dark web forums for significant amounts of money.
The artist argues in the case that this situation does not respond to an isolated fact, but to a recurring problem of several years. Among the episodes noted is what happened in 2023, year in which illegally circulated on the internet up to 45 unreleased songs, among which are titles such as “Fantasize”, “That Bitch Is Mine” and “White Tee”.
With this judicial authorization, the interpreter’s defense relies on tracking the digital footprints necessary to reveal the identities of the perpetrators, bringing them formally before the courts and setting a precedent in the face of cyber leaks and intrusions affecting the music industry.
