The durable public record of the verified evidence in the Heavy Comforter v. Fraudster case. Each item below is preserved in at least one independent archive so the record cannot go cold.
Every material fact in this case is listed below with: what it is, who holds it, where it lives online, and where it is preserved. Preserved means an independent snapshot exists in a public archive (originally the Internet Archive) that does not depend on any single platform staying up. The live records and their preserved copies together are the evidence trail. Nothing here is inferred. Every row is a verified, dated record.
| Record | Details | Live source | Preserved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Album "3" by Heavy Comforter | Twelve tracks. Released 2021-08-27 on Let's Pretend Records, Bloomington, Indiana. Recorded in The Highland Park Darkroom by WM. Johnson (vocals, guitar, bass, percussion, synth, drum machines). Mastered by John Hoffman. | Bandcamp release page | Internet Archive, snapshots Sep 2021, Dec 2021, Aug 2026 |
| Full tracklist and durations | Twelve-track listing with lengths, transcribed on the case page. | Case data appendix | This page and the case page are self-hosted |
The fraud was first exposed publicly not by us but by a member of the public who noticed the tracks sounded slowed-down. This thread is the independent corroboration that does not depend on our account. It is the strongest single external record of the case.
| Record | Details | Live source | Preserved |
|---|---|---|---|
| r/eggpunk discussion thread | Posted early 2024 by a user who discovered "Zebulon Sheridan" on Spotify and recognized the slowed recordings. Original poster identified "White" as a slowed-down copy of "3," named "Can't Go Home At Night," and noted the "Laura Bennett" composer credit. W. Joseph Johnson confirmed in the thread that the tracks were his and unauthorized. | old.reddit.com r/eggpunk | Internet Archive snapshot, Aug 2026 |
Note: comments on the thread, including the artist's confirmation, may load separately from the main post depending on the viewer used. The archive snapshot is the stable reference.
Private written correspondence from February 2024 documents the fraud window and the fan's independent investigation and purchase. These are held privately and are not displayed in full because the correspondents are not parties to any legal action and their messages are not ours to publish. Their existence, date range, and evidentiary character are recorded here.
| Record | Details | Live source | Preserved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bandcamp contact-form inquiries (Feb 2024) | Dated 2024-02-10 to 2024-02-11. Independent discovery narrative from a fan who traced a YouTube copyright claim for "Can't Go Home At Night" to Let's Pretend Records and concluded the fraud was a slowed rerelease of "3." | Private | Encrypted copy on file, password-protected |
| Bandcamp purchase transaction | Transaction 87187376, 2024-02-10 22:54. Evidence of genuine fan engagement tied to the discovery. | Private | Encrypted copy on file |
Identifiers captured during the investigation. These are stable platform identifiers that point at the fraud copies on the services where they were distributed through Repost Network. The "White" album and both fraud artist pages are live on Spotify and preserved in the Internet Archive.
| Record | Identifier | Live URL | Preserved (Internet Archive) |
|---|---|---|---|
| "White" album (Spotify) | spotify:album:0A7H9hBmZDjjniUQLQtbjm | open.spotify.com/album/0A7H9hBmZDjjniUQLQtbjm | Internet Archive snapshot, Aug 2026 |
| "Zebulon Sheridan" artist (Spotify) | spotify:artist:1J8DXO1Pv8CFETraepu0ZE | open.spotify.com/artist/1J8DXO1Pv8CFETraepu0ZE | Internet Archive snapshot, Aug 2026 |
| "Darnell Barrie" artist (Spotify) | spotify:artist:4Cbo6sah40ewSu17cvmpj8 | open.spotify.com/artist/4Cbo6sah40ewSu17cvmpj8 | Internet Archive snapshot, Aug 2026 |
| "Zebulon Sheridan" artist (Apple Music) | Apple artist ID 1695522620 | n/a | n/a |
| YouTube "Release - Topic" channel | UCmfcNM-JuKwsLlcFH6Fy4WQ | n/a | n/a |
| Distributor | Repost Network (Repost by SoundCloud) | n/a | n/a |
Plainly: the "Darnell Barrie" artist page is captured, but no separate track-level artefact for its "Cold" (from "I Was Colder") was ever preserved before the DSP scrubbed it, and the identity behind it has not been established to any real person. The path to a real individual runs through the distributor's account records (registered email, account name, payment-method name, upload IPs), which are the subject of the standing request to SoundCloud / Repost (sent 2026-08-05) and, if needed, a 17 U.S.C. § 512(h) subpoena. Until those records are produced, "Darnell Barrie" remains a fabricated upload persona — most plausibly the same operator as "Zebulon Sheridan," but that link is inferred, not proven.
Full per-track details (titles, durations, match status) are transcribed in the case data appendix.
| Record | Details | Live source | Preserved |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Laura Bennett" (Laura Jane Bennett) composer credit | Two separate facts, kept distinct. (a) The name is real: a drum-and-bass vocalist / co-writer named Laura Jane "Laura Bennett" is active in the British electronic scene since at least 2011, with credited collaborations (Waterfalls 2022 with JiNi, Good to You 2023 with Astreaux, This Life 2023 with Eddy Lucas, Matcha / High Tea Music 2023) and composer credits in her full legal name. This is the person whose name the fraud copied without consent. (b) However, the Apple Music artist ID 1583186326 is a pooled catalogue bucket, not one human's discography: it carries releases from four unrelated copyright owners, only some of which are her work (True Tone Recordings 2025, Berlin Piano Room 2026, Calypto 2026, alongside the drum-and-bass labels). The volume spa/piano catalogue under that ID was almost certainly loaded by a distributor, not by her. We do not attribute that catalogue to her, and we make no claim that these volume labels connect to the fraud ring. What matters for the case is that the composer credit is a real stolen name, and it was layered onto the infringing copy without her knowledge. | Apple Music (ID 1583186326) Deezer (ID 6383182) Amazon Music (ID B004M7M1AE) |
Internet Archive of her Apple Music page, Aug 2026 |
Evidence for the credit itself derives from the fraud's track metadata as noted in the r/eggpunk thread (section 2) and the private time-of-fraud correspondence (section 3), in which the composer line was observed in the live "White" listing before the DSP scrubbed the tracks. The fraud pages no longer render the composer credit at a logged-out level.
| Fact | Record |
|---|---|
| Author and copyright owner | W. Joseph Johnson, performing as Heavy Comforter. Sole author of the sound recordings and compositions. Distribution with Let's Pretend Records is licensed, not assigned; no ownership transfer occurred. |
| Authorization | No license or authorization exists for the "Zebulon Sheridan" or "Darnell Barrie" copies. The uploader owns no rights and holds no license. |
This record is maintained by Beaumont & Sheridan. Preserved copies are independent snapshots in public archives that do not depend on any single platform. When a new archive snapshot is created, its URL is added to the relevant row above. If a live source goes down, the preserved copy remains the operative record. This page itself is served from our own infrastructure and backed up on a schedule, so the index of the evidence cannot go cold even if every external service is taken offline.