READ MORE: Ariana Grande live in London: brilliant business-as-usual before the singer takes a break from the spotlight.
The ruling was made by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark H. Epstein on Wednesday (August 19), who granted the pop star the power of a fast-track subpoena, which she argued was necessary to identify those who hacked into her files and sold unreleased music, photos, and videos of hers on the “dark web”.
The move means that Grande does not have to comply with a waiting period tied to providing notice to the defendants in her invasion of privacy lawsuit, as she has no way of tracking down the hackers involved or identifying them for the court.
Her lawsuit was first filed on July 27, and claimed that people broke into the personal online accounts belonging to her, her photographers, and her producers, and stole the information using stolen login credentials and phishing schemes.
Stolen material included footage from recording sessions, demos, and unreleased masters, which were then sold on the dark web for “significant sums of money”.
She then pushed for the legal proceedings to be accelerated, as any delay will lead to an “increased risk that additional content will be stolen or sold, and that the account, subscriber, and login data needed to identify defendants will be lost” (via court documents obtained by Rolling Stone).
A judge has granted Ariana Grande fast-track subpoena power to unmask the alleged hackers behind leaks of her unreleased music on the 'dark web.'https://t.co/WNEEPeKBiM.
Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) August 19, 2026.
In their filing, Grande and her legal team alleged that 45 songs were stolen and leaked in 2023 alone, but there have been hundreds of similar instances she has faced since 2011, and each time it causes “irreparable harm”.
In Wednesday’s ruling, the judge wrote in his minutes (via Rolling Stone): “The 20-day waiting period will never run because plaintiff cannot — even with reasonable diligence — [determine] the defendant’s identity without this discovery, and therefore will never be able to serve defendants.”.
In other Grande news, the singer and actor is currently playing a 10-date residency at London’s O2 Arena on her ‘Eternal Sunshine’ tour. Reviewing the first night at The O2, NME awarded the show five stars, describing it as “brilliant business-as-usual before the singer takes a break from the spotlight”.
The pop star’s representatives also confirmed earlier this month that she would be “taking a step back from visibility” following the tour.
She also withdrew from the upcoming West End revival of Sunday In The Park With George, in which she had been due to appear alongside her Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey.
It would have been her West End debut at London’s Barbican Centre, starting next summer.
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Informação baseada em material público de NME, reescrito pela redação ULTRA NOTÍCIAS.
