Stolen...

The complete back catalogue of Michael Jackson's music has been stolen by hackers.

Sony Music's Jackson archive was illegally hijacked and more than 50,000 digital files were downloaded as part of a massive operation.

Record company bosses paid $250 million (157,908GBP) to Jackson's estate in 2010 for the collection, which included unheard material from when he made his Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad albums.

A source told the Sunday Times: "Everything Sony purchased from the Michael Jackson estate was compromised.

"It caused them to check their systems and they found the breach. There was a degree of sophistication. Sony identified the weakness and plugged the gap."

The catalogue is also said to include, amongst other things,  an unreleased  duet with the late Freddie Mercury from Queen.



This is obviously a massive blow for Sony if the unreleased material starts appearing on-line. Time will tell - but my guess is that these tracks will be sold off to megafans who will pay big bucks for the songs, and who will keep them to themselves - at least to begin with. And after the investigation that successfully found (and jailed) the person responsible for the leak of Madonna's "Give Me All Your Luvin" single, I am sure that Sony will do everything in their power to find the hackers.