Ariana Grande can begin subpoenaing social-media platforms and payment services in an effort to identify the people she accuses of stealing, leaking and selling years of unreleased music.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark H. Epstein granted Grande’s request for expedited discovery on August 19th, clearing her lawyers to seek records from third parties before the anonymous defendants in her lawsuit have been identified or served.
The companies potentially receiving subpoenas include Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X and Discord, alongside payment services PayPal and Cash App, Music Business Worldwide details. None of those companies is accused of wrongdoing; Grande’s legal team says records held by the services could help connect anonymous online activity and transactions with the people behind them.
The unusual problem at the center of the case is that Grande does not yet know whom she is suing. Her July 27th complaint names John Doe 1 and John Does 2 through 100 and alleges that unknown individuals hacked accounts and devices belonging to people in her professional circle, stole unreleased recordings and other private material, and sold or distributed that content online.
The August ruling does not establish that any unidentified defendant committed those acts. It gives Grande a legal path to try to discover who is behind the accounts she has accused.
Grande Had to Sue People She Couldn’t Name
The structure of the lawsuit reflects the basic obstacle facing Grande’s attorneys.
A normal civil case begins with a defendant who can be identified and served. Grande’s complaint instead targets Doe defendants because, according to her legal team, the people allegedly selling and distributing the stolen material have concealed their identities behind online accounts.
Grande’s attorneys asked the court on August 18th to let them begin discovery early. Without subpoenas, they argued, they could not obtain the records needed to identify the defendants, which in turn meant they could not serve anyone and move the case forward through ordinary discovery.
Epstein agreed. “Plaintiff may serve the discovery aimed at identifying the identities of the Doe defendants at any time,” he wrote in the August 19th order quoted by local court coverage.
The judge also addressed the unusual timing problem. California civil procedure ordinarily places limits on when discovery and noticed motions can begin, but waiting for service created an obvious problem when Grande says discovery is necessary to determine whom she needs to serve.
The order breaks that loop. Grande can now seek identifying records before a named defendant enters the case.
Social Accounts and Payments Leave Different Trails
The subpoenas matter because different parts of the alleged operation may have left information with different companies.
A social-media account can provide the public-facing identity used to advertise or distribute material. Depending on what each service retains and what a subpoena properly requests, account records could potentially contain registration, login or other information useful in identifying an operator.
Payment services create another possible trail. Grande’s complaint alleges that stolen content was sold “in batches” and that transactions used services including PayPal and Cash App.
An account advertising unreleased Ariana Grande material and an account receiving money for it do not necessarily have to provide the same clues. Her lawyers can potentially compare responsive information from different services while trying to connect online aliases with actual people.
The companies themselves are not defendants. Grande’s lawsuit treats them as third parties that may possess information relevant to identifying the people she is accusing.
Exactly what records will be produced, whether any company objects and whether the information ultimately identifies particular defendants remain open questions.
The Alleged Hacks Reached Grande Through Her Collaborators
The lawsuit also illustrates why protecting unreleased music is not simply a matter of securing an artist’s own phone, laptop or cloud account.
Grande alleges that attackers repeatedly targeted people around her.
The July complaint, reviewed by ABC News, describes intrusions involving digital accounts and devices belonging to photographers and producers who had worked with Grande. The allegedly stolen material included unreleased masters and demos, recording-session footage, music videos, photographs and album or photoshoot outtakes.
One incident dates to 2019, when the lawsuit says hackers obtained credentials for a photographer’s Dropbox account. In 2020, the complaint alleges that a producer’s mobile device was compromised and unreleased masters, demos and recording-session footage were taken.
Phishing entered the allegations in 2024. The complaint says attackers created a fake Gmail account and a lookalike domain impersonating a photographer, then persuaded a technician to provide unreleased Grande material.
Those incidents describe a wide digital perimeter around a major recording project. Producers, photographers, engineers, video teams and technicians may all possess material that has never been released publicly.
Securing an album therefore involves more than protecting the artist’s own accounts. Every collaborator holding pre-release files can become another potential point of access.
Forty-Five Songs Allegedly Leaked in One Year
The scale described in Grande’s complaint goes well beyond one stolen demo.
“In 2023 alone, 45 unreleased songs belonging to Ms. Grande were hacked, stolen and leaked by defendants,” the lawsuit states, according to MBW’s review. The complaint also alleges that hundreds of leaks involving Grande’s work have occurred since her 2011 music debut.
The lawsuit says the consequences extended into her actual release plans.
Grande alleges that she spent substantial resources investigating leaks and attempting to remove stolen material from the internet. More unusually for a music-business dispute, the complaint says she has had to re-record material and alter release dates in response to leaks.
That is where an unreleased-song leak differs from ordinary piracy of music already available commercially.
If someone illegally distributes a released album, the unauthorized copy concerns a finished recording the artist has already chosen to make public. A pre-release leak can expose a demo, alternate version or unfinished recording before the artist has decided whether anyone should hear it at all.
Once that file spreads through online fan communities and private trading groups, the artist can lose control over both timing and context.
The Allegations Describe a Market for Leaked Music
Unreleased songs can carry value precisely because listeners are not supposed to have them.
Grande’s complaint alleges that stolen material was sold on the dark web for significant sums and that defendants sold content to one another after obtaining it. Some material was subsequently distributed more broadly through social platforms and file-transfer services.
The allegations describe an underground market that looks different from the file-sharing networks associated with music piracy two decades ago.
A rare demo can circulate privately before becoming a public leak. Sellers can advertise access through online accounts or closed communities, transfer files digitally and accept payments through services that leave a different set of records from the files themselves.
Once a buyer redistributes a recording, however, whatever scarcity gave it value can disappear almost instantly.
Grande’s complaint refers both to alleged hackers and to downstream figures who obtained and redistributed material after the initial theft. The case therefore reaches beyond removing individual copies of leaked songs.
Grande is attempting to identify people she alleges participated in acquiring, selling or disseminating the underlying material.
Music Leaks Can Rewrite a Release Campaign
Grande’s allegation that leaks forced her to re-record material and modify release dates shows why pre-release theft can become a creative problem as well as a legal and security issue.
Albums are built around timing. Singles establish the first public impression of a project, while videos, artwork, physical editions, interviews and other promotion can be coordinated around a release schedule.
An unfinished song appearing months early can disrupt that sequence. Listeners may form opinions about a recording that was still being revised, while a track the artist never intended to release can become permanently associated with them in fan discussions and online archives.
Grande has addressed that frustration publicly before. During her 2024 conversation with Zach Sang, she discussed unreleased material circulating without permission and joked about the people responsible facing jail while describing the experience of unfinished work reaching listeners before she intended it to.
The current lawsuit turns that frustration into a legal strategy.
Rather than relying only on efforts to remove files after they surface, Grande is attempting to identify the people she says are behind the theft, sales and wider distribution.
Identifying the Defendants Is Only the First Step
The August 19th ruling gives Grande permission to investigate identities. It does not decide the lawsuit.
If subpoenaed records identify individuals behind the accounts, Grande could seek to replace the Doe designations with actual defendants and formally serve them. Those defendants would then have an opportunity to answer the allegations and challenge her claims.
The complaint includes claims for invasion of privacy, conversion and violations of California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. Grande also seeks a jury trial and court orders requiring private material to be returned and preventing further misuse.
The case is scheduled to return to court for a status hearing in January, MBW notes.
Whether the subpoenas successfully identify anyone remains unknown. So does whether the people identified, if any, will ultimately be shown to have participated in the conduct described in Grande’s complaint.
For now, the ruling gives her something she did not have when the lawsuit was filed in July: a court-approved route from anonymous usernames and payment accounts toward potential names.
For artists trying to keep unfinished music private, identifying who is behind a leak can be as important as getting the files taken down.