Late last year, Madonna logged furiously into her Instagram account in order to complain that hackers had broken into her computer, and stolen photographs and music tracks.
Madonna's plans for a Spring 2015 launch for her album "Rebel Heart" were allegedly thrown into chaos by the hack, which saw "early, leaked demos" of some of the album tracks released onto the internet. In an attempt to minimise any damage, the savvy queen of pop released six songs early on iTunes, which adoring fans lapped up.
It didn't take long for the police to get involved, and within a month a suspect was arrested by Israeli police.
In a bizarre twist, the man arrested by Israeli cops was 39-year-old Adi Lederman, who had appeared on Israel's "Kochav Nolad" ("A Star Is Born") TV talent show.
For the record, the TV show's judges described Lederman's performance as "painful".
When Lederman was voted off the show he is said to have focused his fury in Madonna's direction, hacking into a cloud account run by a member of the Material Girl's team, stealing an early version of "Give Me All Your Luvin'" from her earlier MDNA album.
Breaking into the music business is one thing. Breaking into Madonna's computer without permission is quite another.
As the Jerusalem Post reports, Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court hit Lederman with a 14 month sentence on Thursday as part of a plea bargain deal.
By all accounts, Lederman had returned to his hacking activities, breaking into email servers used by Kevin Antunes and Guy Oseary - Madonna's musical director and talent manager respectively. Once there, the hacker was able to obtain the necessary passwords to steal files from cloud-based accounts.
The music tracks were then sold to two buyers for a rather paltry $300 each.
Earlier this year, at the time of Lederman's arrest, Madonna posted on Facebook about the impact the hack had had on her:
"Like any citizen, I have the right to privacy. This invasion into my life – creatively, professionally, and personally – remains a deeply devastating and hurtful experience, as it must be for all artists who are victims of this type of crime."
Madonna isn't perhaps the most sympathetic character ever to grace the public eye, but I cannot help but feel some compassion for her. It should be her decision to decide when and if her music gets released, and in what format. Nobody should have the right to steal music and release it without permission.
Ever the professional, Madonna puts on a brave face in her latest video "Bitch I'm Madonna":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hPMmzKs62w
Regardless whether you enjoy Madonna's music video, you should feel sorry for Adi Lederman. He, for one, is unlikely to be watching it from his prison cell.
