Sony are suing a Swedish music fan for $233,000 (£154,000) for leaking an early copy of Beyonce's album '4'.

According to *******freak, on June 8 2011, a 47-year-old man from Gothenburg shared a copy of the singer's most recent studio album ahead of its June 24 release date. Although his identity is unknown, it is believed that he works in the music industry.

Sony have now filed a submission to the Gothenburg District Court claiming that it has been negatively affected by the leak for numerous reasons, including suffering damage to its marketing strategy and sales revenues. They also claim that the leak damaged their relationship with Beyoncé, and that her reputation had been hurt by the incident.

Earlier this year, two hackers charged with stealing music from Sony including unreleased material by Michael Jackson were given six month sentences suspended for a year and were also ordered to complete 100 hours of community service after pleading guilty to computer misuse offences. James Marks, 27, from Northants and James McCormick, 26, from Blackpool downloaded up to 7,000 files including music by the likes of Beyoncé and Elvis Presley before their arrest in May 2011.

Originally posted by atrlster

Their relationship with Beyonce was hurt? The leak damaged her reputation? What?! Lol

All albums leak a few weeks early

4s leak wasn't anything unusual.