Sony confirms the theft of Michael Jackson's musical catalogue

More than 50 thousand files of Sony Music, most of the late pop star were illegally downloaded from the servers of the label. Among them would be a duet between Jackson and Freddie Mercury.

The company Sony Music confirmed that suffered hacking their servers last year, revealing that several important records were stolen, including a large part is the catalog of Michael Jackson.

While the record did not report publicly the number of tracks, BBC News reports that the attack would have occurred shortly after April 2011, at which time PSN was hacked, revealing information from over 77 million users.

The possible emergence of new songs of the King of Pop on the Internet, as his collaboration with Queen singer, Freddie Mercury, would be a blow to Sony: in 2010 (nine months after the death of the singer) was credited with the rights Jackson's music for the not inconsiderable amount of $ 250 million, to commercially exploit phonograms for 7 years.

Invaluable addition to the duet between Jackson and Mercury recorded in the early eighties, when the British band was touring the United States, include unpublished material in the most recent collaboration with the member of the Black Eyed Peas, Will.I. Am

Sony planned to launch more than ten albums "Jacko" and by the enjoyment of rights intended to use his music in video games, television commercials, shows and other events until 2017.

Suspicions began when an employee of Sony reviewed some comments in forums MJ fans. Then, the company confirmed that indeed there was an infiltration systems company with a "degree of sophistication."

Meanwhile, they were two Britons, James Marks, 26, and James McCormick of 25, the defendants in this case, for offenses under the Computer Misuse Act English. Both denied the charges and were able to make bail, but will go to trial in 2013.

The site is also home to Sony records for other artists such as Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Foo Fighters, Avril Lavigne and Jimi Hendrix, although it remains unclear whether they were affected by the hack.