A HACKING ATTACK on Sony’s PlayStation Network last year resulted in some Michael Jackson songs being accessed and downloaded, it has emerged.

It is thought that the songs include material which Jackson had recorded before his death, including unreleased duets with the likes of will.i.am and Freddie Mercury of Queen.

Sony acknowledged to the BBC that the music had been accessed during the attack on the PlayStation Network (PSN) in April of last year, when the personal details of some 70 million users were compromised.

Sony had signed a seven-year deal with Jackson’s estate in 2010 to secure the rights to the singer’s back catalogue and unreleased materials. The $250 million (€190 million) deal was the largest recording deal in history.

The label has not commented on whether any unreleased material is among the trove of material which was accessed at the time, or confirmed reports that the hack meant the entirety of Jackson’s catalogue – containing some 50,000 sound files – was breached.

Two people in the UK have been charged in connection with the April attack, which Sony described at the time as that “an illegal and unauthorised intrusion into our network”.