Singer Ariana Grande is asking a judge to allow the issuance of deposition subpoenas on third parties as she tries to identify unknown hackers who have stolen songs, videos, photographs and other materials and illegally profited by selling them on the “dark web.”
The “Yes, And?” singer’s lawsuit, filed July 27 in Santa Monica Superior Court, does not name any specific defendants, but says she is taking legal action “to uncover the identities of these currently unknown and unscrupulous individuals in order to hold them accountable for their invasive and reprehensible conduct.”
On Tuesday, the singer’s lawyers filed court papers with Judge Mark H. Epstein for an expedited order allowing their client to conduct discovery and serve third-party deposition subpoenas for production of business records. The subpoenas would target what the lawyers allege are internet platforms and other entities whose services were used to perpetrate the “illegal dissemination and transactions,” and which are believed to have information and data that will allow Grande to “identify and unmask these unknown defendants.”
Without the third-party discovery, further informal investigative efforts will continue to be “fruitless,” Grande’s attorneys further state in their pleadings.
The suit claims hackers engaged in phishing scams and other cyberattack methods to access digital accounts and materials from photographers and producers with whom Grande has worked. Grande’s real name is Ariana Grande-Butera.
Since 2019, the unknown perpetrators have allegedly hacked the personal digital accounts and devices of Grande’s photographers and producers, including through stolen login credentials and phishing schemes, and stolen Grande’s private, unreleased creative content, including unreleased masters, demos, recording-session footage, and photographs, according to the singer’s lawyers’ pleadings.