Two Englishmen have been sentenced with 100 hours community service and a 6 month suspended sentence for hacking into and stealing music files from Sony Music. The pair, James Marks and James McCormick downloaded thousands of tracks from the company’s US servers, most notably unreleased tracks from the late Michael Jackson.
Marks and McCormick were arrested in May 2011 and chatlogs on their computers recovered by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) indicated that they were planning on selling and distributing the stolen tracks. Other stolen files included artwork, videos and music by Britney Spears, Beyonce and Elvis.
In 2009, the year of his death, Sony Music signed a seven-year deal with Micheal Jackson’s estate to posthumously sell the diseased pop-star‘s unreleased material, including the material stolen by Marks and McCormick.
Story by: Ferdia MacAonghusa
