[HOST] Leaks are everywhere and afflict everyone from Lil Uzi Vert, to Young Thug to even Playboi
Carti who, while performing his unreleased but leaked song, “Neon” found out the
crowd already knew the lyrics.
PERSON: Play some new shit Carti!
Carti: How the fuck y’all know that song?
[HOST] Genius has covered the *impact* of leaks but a crucial question remains - how
do leaks happen?
SOURCE: I’m not there for their personal life.
I’m just there to get the songs and be out.
[HOST] That is a hacker who finds and leaks songs.
Genius granted them anonymity to speak freely about the trend of those who believe they’re
fans while stealing from the artists they claim to love.
[HOST] Our source said they’ve acquired songs by by meticulously sifting through numerous
data breaches online.
[HOST] Then, the hacker used a powerful computer to crack the artist or producer’s password.
SOURCE: I crack the hash then i proceed to use the password on gmail or whatever
I’m looking for People aren’t that creative.
They use the same passwords
[HOST] Then they headed to sites like Leakth.is and the gaming messaging platform Discord
to offer the songs up for sale.
SOURCE: They work hand in hand together to make selling unreleased music extremely easy.
[HOST] These are an example of what these group buys look like.
The hacker understands that leaks are not helpful but believes that the music should
be released.
SOURCE: I feel like they do have an obligation to provide their fans with music...And if
we’re not getting music, we’re gonna get it ourselves…
[HOST] Hackers and music leaks have a long history - from the mysterious MusicMafia to
the birth of the MP3 in the mid 90s.
STEPHEN: Historically, most leaks came from an elite group of hackers called the Warez
Scene.
[HOST] That’s Stephen Witt, author of “How Music Got Free,” a history of digital music
piracy.
In his book he says ‘The Scene’ was quote.
[HOST] ...loosely affiliated digital crews [who] raced one another to be the first to
release newly pirated material.
[HOST] Groups like Compress ‘Da Audio, Apocalypse Production Crew, and others provided the bulk
of the songs that eventually made their way onto early peer to peer file sharing services.
STEPHEN:...Napster and Limewire were full of pirated material that came from this vanguard
underground that infiltrated the music and movie industry supply chains and leaked stuff
out to the internet...
REPORTER: It was on college campuses with high speed internet that Napster really took
off in the fall of 1999.
So, uh, how many mp3s do you have on your computer?
About 600.
[HOST] The groups did it for the thrill instead of the money as Witt notes in a 2015 article
saying quote.
[HOST] Scene culture drew a distinction between online file-sharing and for-profit bootlegging...
STEPHEN: I don’t wanna call it noble necessarily but there was a certain ethos to it that this
was not to be a profitable activity.
[HOST] But things are different today.
STEPHEN: The emergence of the crowd funding platform makes this more economically viable
then say it would’ve been 10 years ago.
[HOST] Which brings us back to our source, whose said he’s sold songs for real
money..
SOURCE: I made around 5 grand
[HOST] Which is a drop in the bucket compared to the money people lose every year from getting
their emails hacked.
ASOF: In the last 4 -5 years, there’s been as reported by the FBI over 12 Billion Dollars
in direct losses [HOST] That’s Asof Cidon, an Assistant Professor
of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University.
[HOST] He broke down for us a couple tips on keeping your emails secure.
ASOF: The two most effective ways to protect yourself is 1 to use a password manager that
makes sure your passwords are strong and that you’re not reusing the same passwords...
[HOST] As our source mentioned earlier, password reuse is rampant with one security firm finding
that 52% of people use the same passwords across multiple logins.
[HOST] Services like LastPass, 1Password and Bitwarden recommend strong passwords that
you do not have to remember.
ASOF: And even more powerful than that is multi-factor authentication...making sure
there is another mechanism that authenticates that you are who you say you are.
[HOST] And make no mistake, fans or not, what these hackers are doing is very illegal.
REPORTER: The suspect, a 19 year old from the UK allegedly hacked into websites and
cloud based accounts illegally stealing unreleased songs and selling the stolen music in exchange
for crypto currency.
[HOST] But our source says that they hope that coming forward will shine a light on
what is going on.
SOURCE: I know that there will be an artist out there that will watch this video and be
like ‘o shit’ and change their passwords.
[HOST] I’m Jacques Morel with Genius News, bringing you the meaning and the knowledge
behind the music.
Peace.