During an appearance on the Klein/Ally Show, The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan revealed that he had to give money to a hacker to prevent tracks from the band’s triple album, “Atum,” from leaking online. The incident happened while the record was still in the mixing and mastering phase.
Corgan said the following:
“Right when the album was being mixed and mastered, which is a very kind of nervous time because the files are finally going out to different people and as you can imagine, these days, everything’s digital. So, a fan contacted me and said, ‘Nine of the songs have leaked.’ This is, like, six months ago, and they were all probably the most catchy, single-y type songs.
So, it’s like, not only is it six months too early, but you’re pretty much giving away the album before you even have a chance to set your feet into the ground. And somehow, some hacker was offering the files for money, and we were able to trace it and pay off and keep it from leaking. The FBI got involved.”
He also added:
“They had, yeah, they strangely had stuff that wasn’t – I don’t know how they got what they got. [Ransom was paid] out of my pocket, unfortunately. What we were able to do was stop the leak from happening, because it was a mercenary person who had hacked somebody – I don’t want to say who – and they had other stuff from other artists.
It wasn’t like some Pumpkins fan that was hellbent on breaking it on Reddit. . . . Somehow, they gave some information that allowed the FBI to track them. I don’t know the end result of it yet.”
[via Loudwire]
Metal Anarchy 
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