Nearly a year after Sony Pictures and the PlayStation Network faced targeted hacking attacks, it has emerged that Sony Music had its own breach in the US in 2011. Two British men appeared in a UK court on Friday over charges they illegally downloaded more than 50,000 Sony Music files – most of them by the late Michael Jackson. The duo was arrested last May, just a month after Sony faced a massive breach to its PlayStation Network and a month before website Lulz Security claimed it had broken into SonyPictures.com. The alleged British hackers are said to have stolen the Jackson music, including many unreleased songs, and works by other artists. In 2010, Sony and the Jackson estate signed the biggest recording deal in history giving the company the rights to sell the singer’s entire back catalog along with previously unreleased tracks. Sony is said to have realized the songs had been compromised during routine monitoring of Jackson fansites and hacking forums. The Britsh men have denied the allegations and are due to stand trial next January.

You know these guys are Bad!
So Michael Jackson recorded nearly 50,000 songs? Or did these guys just supposedly grab 50,000 digital copies of the same 100 or so songs?
you’re kidding… right?
50,000 digital copies of the same songs? *face palm*
>routine monitoring of Jackson fansites and hacking forums
That’s a lousy way to taint a musical legacy. Michael Jackson was capable of producing more solo work but that was not the case. It would have been nice to expand on a musical legend’s portrait by releasing some music from the vault. Now with downloading, the surprise of hearing the music may be gone.
Michael could have made more music videos. That would have been cool.
What does that mean? They stole all the original master tracks, or just things that have been released?
I don’t get it.
How can unrealeased music be hacked into and stolen unless it’s on the web to begin with??
All music, to my knowledge, is still recorded on magnetic tape, right? Now how can this music be stolen unless someone within Sony puts it on the web or somewhere within the Internet?? It can’t be stolen if it stays within a reel of tape locked in a vault.
How can outsiders hack into Sony’s files and steal something that, incredibly, should NOT be on the files to begin with?
Sounds like Sony was asking for trouble to begin with.
Like I said, I just don’t get it.