Michael Jackson "fans" hack Sony music website for several unpublished works.

By:  Alex Templer - MSTV Correspondent

Two men who admitted hacking into the Sony Music database, and stealing thousands of hours of music tracks, including unreleased material by Michael Jackson, have been spared jail.

The two men, James Marks and James McCormick, who are British citizens, downloaded up to 7,000 files, including music by Beyonce.

After pleading guilty to computer misuse offenses, they were only given a six month sentence suspended for a year and each ordered to complete 100 hours community service.

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Great Britain Crown Court discovered that Marks and McCormick had accessed thousands of files.

Their hack occurred in 2011, but was only able to be confirmed by Sony records since last March.

The court heard there was a security flaw in the system used by Sony Music to share music with people outside the firm.

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Apparently Marks and McCormick were not the first to exploit this flaw, but they used an adapted hacker program to speed up the download of numerous music files.

When questioned, the pair claimed they only wanted to gather proof that some Jackson's material released after his death "didn't actually feature" the singer's voice.  But Sony Music, in response, has always denied that vocals on some tracks on the posthumous album "Michael" were done by another singer.

Sony, who paid $250m for a seven-year deal for the rights to MJ's remaining songs, announced their acquisition included recorded, yet unreleased duets with artists ranging from the late Freddie Mercury to Black Eyed Peas singer Will.i.am.

Online conversations released in court between Marks and McCormick revealed they talked about selling the material. But this never came to anything.

Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), head of cyber investigations Mick Jamieson said, "The internet's a fantastic tool for everyone to use, but sadly there are one or two individuals who choose to misuse it.  However, authorities are now able to to identify what you're doing, find out who you are, and come and arrest you."

Marks and McCormick admitted to two counts of unauthorised access to computing materials, but due to a plea bargain, their six month jail sentences were suspended for a year with more serious charges being completely dropped.

Speaking outside court, James Marks said he was sorry for downloading the files but was still determined to prove Jackson didn't sing on some tracks on 'Michael'.

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