Although Marks and McCormick were not the first to exploit a flaw in Sony’s system for sharing music with people outside of the firm, they used an adapted program to make the process faster. According to the prosecution, they accessed in excess of 7000 files, comprising complete tracks, component parts, artwork and videos. They were arrested in March 2012 after Sony identified the breach and informed the police.
Sony had bought the rights to Michael Jackson’s music for a seven-year period some nine months after his death, in a deal worth $250 million. However, Sony’s first posthumous release, Michael, was thought by some to include fake tracks. “Michael Jackson's forthcoming album includes several ‘fake’ songs, his mother has reportedly claimed,” said The Guardian. It was the pair’s contention that they were merely seeking evidence to prove that some posthumous releases were not sung by Jackson himself – something that Sony has always denied.
However, after tracking the hack to the pair’s home computers, investigators discovered chatlogs suggesting that they hoped to sell or trade some of the files – something that never actually happened. Gregor McGill, head of organized crime at the UK's Crown Prosecution Service, said, “James Marks and James McCormick have today been sentenced for hacking the servers of one of the world's largest recorded music companies from their home computers in Daventry and Blackpool respectively,” according to theLondon Evening Standard. “It was the prosecution's case that these men were fully aware that the files they obtained on their computers were subject to copyright and that they took steps to sell on and to share the music with a wider audience in internet forums.”
Meanwhile, Marks tweeted on Friday that he was grateful to the judge, but “Please dont believe the press, or SOCA 7900 files...wasn't it 49,000 last year? its more like 300 files they added files from elsewhere.”