Vevo investigates hack of music star YouTube channels

[SAN FRANCISCO] Music hosting service Vevo on Wednesday (Apr 6) confirmed that its YouTube channels for Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and other famous artists had served up videos of a convicted conman after being hacked.

Vevo, which provides music videos to platforms including YouTube, said that it deleted the improperly uploaded content and is investigating the breach.

"Some videos were directly uploaded to a small number of Vevo artist channels earlier today by an unauthorised source," a spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry. "No pre-existing content was accessible to the source."

Google-owned YouTube did not respond to a request for comment.

Popular Vevo channels for artists such as Ariana Grande, Drake, Eminem, Michael Jackson and Kanye West were reported to be targeted in the hack.

A video of Paco Sanz, a Spaniard sentenced last year to prison for falsely claiming to be dying of cancer and scamming celebrities and others, had been visible for a few hours at hacked YouTube channels.

Vevo was launched in 2009 by Universal Music and Sony Music as a joint venture to host music for artists.

Hackers struck at Vevo 4 years ago, defacing music videos and causing hit number Despacito to vanish temporarily from the service. AFP