Sony Sends DMCA Notices Against Users Spreading Leaked Emails

Dangerous_Minds writes Last week, Sony threatened legal action against users spreading information obtained through the e-mails that were leaked as a result of the Sony hack. Sony has begun carrying through with those threats. Twitter, after resisting demands that a user account be suspended for publishing leaked e-mails, has received a DMCA notice saying that the e-mails are, weirdly enough, copyrighted.

Comments

Biggest tech story of the last few months

[aaron4801]

Reporting on the emails is classic fair use.

I think the point...

[rsilvergun]

is that this is exactly the sort of overreach of intent that people said would happen with the DMCA. There's a lot of dirt in those emails on Sony (like them coordinating with Attorneys General to attack Google). Much of that information falls under what used to be freedom of press. The DMCA screws all that. Now anything you don't want making the rounds you just copyright and an ironclad and unquestionable law shuts it down instantly. I believe the phrase is "Chilling Effect"...

Sony views this as primarily a PR problem

[Required Snark]

They clearly are more concerned about the publicity aspects of the hack then anything else. Any other issues, like exposure of employee data, don't mean a damn to them.

That's why there are the DCMA takedown notices and the threats to sue. They figure that if they can keep it out of the press then it will soon be forgotten and they won't have much to worry about.

This might work for the general public, but in Hollywood it's not going to be that easy. Besides the powerful individuals that they trashed, it's now obvious that that they also engage in routine conspiracies to get what they want. That's what the Google maneuver was about. A lot of players are going to realize that Sony had done a lot of dirty deeds already, and some will see that previous problems may be the result of underhanded tactics. Not that anyone else is better, but having confirmation effectively raises the stakes.

Personally, I enjoy looking forward to some real pain in Sony land. They have a bad reputation among the Hollywood rank and file, so there will be a lot of schadenfreude in the new year. It's long overdue.