Smooth criminals nab Jacko\'s back catalogue from Sony

Michael Jackson's entire back catalogue, including unreleased material, have been stolen from Sony in a fresh breach.

According to media reports, the Sony Music archive was hacked with greater than 50,000 digital files downloaded.

According to the Guardian, two men were charged on Friday for offences in reference to the alleged security breach. James Marks, 26, from Daventry in Northamptonshire, and James McCormick, 25, from Blackpool, denied charges under the pc Misuse Act and the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act at Leicester Crown Court. They were arrested last May and are because of stand trial next January.

The Daily Mail claimed the hacking occurred shortly after the attack at the PlayStation Network last year, but was not discovered until after routine monitoring of social networking sites, Jackson fan sites and hacking forums.

It also claimed that the hack has compromised the work of alternative artists managed by the firm, including songs by Jimi Hendrix, Paul Simon, Olly Murs, Foo Fighters and Avril Lavigne.

Jackson's back catalogue was bought by Sony in 2010 for $250m (£164m), giving the corporate the rights to sell his catalogue in addition to previously unreleased tracks.

A source told The Sunday Times that "everything Sony purchased from the Michael Jackson estate was compromised".

“It caused them to ascertain their systems and so they found the breach. There has been a level of class. Sony identified the weakness and plugged the space.”

Asked if he felt whether this was a case of over-exuberant fans looking for Jackson's material, or hackers seeking to exploit the IP of a corporation that were penetrated before, Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs, told SC Magazine that it was probably the latter.

“We all remember how they were hacked and the very poor safety features they'd in place. So it seems like Sony may be a very easy target; in the event that they could get that information then probably that is not it all, unless Sony had [Jackson's material] on an isolated server, so shall we expect more news coming,” he said.