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

Perjury

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the weird part is not that they claim the emails are copyrighted. The weird part is them claiming they own the copyright. While it's almost certainly true that most the email would be considered work-for-hire and hence default to Sony Pictures, it's also a good bet that there's plenty of emails that are personal in nature and would fall into the camp of abuse of network services by their users but that would simultaneously amount to the point that the emails were copyrighted by the actual sender and not Sony Pictures.

And that alone would seem grounds enough to move against them for perjury charges since as been pointed out many times, you can't legally send a takedown notice over a copyrighted work that you don't own the copyright on. So, I can't send take down notices for "The Interview" but if I made a game called Interviewers and had a bot that send auto take down notices that accidentally flagged "The Interview" over my Interviewers copyright, that'd be okay. Of course, either way I could be sued, but it wouldn't be outright illegal in the latter case.

Not that I think Sony Pictures gives a fuck. Hmm..is that libel? Nah, that's just an opinion.

Re: Perjury

[queazocotal]

For added fun - this varies.
In the EU, 'sweat of brow' copyright is generally recognised - if you spent a lot of effort doing something, you may have it copyrighted - even though it is merely a collection of facts.
In the US, this is much less true.

Re:Perjury

[msauve]

You seem to be confusing "creative" with "artistic." US copyright covers "original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression." An email containing the author's own words is certainly creative. Nothing "weird" in any way about emails being subject to copyright. It has been well established that postal letters are covered by copyright, in what way are emails substantially different?

Sorry, can't get excited about this...

[Frosty Piss]

Sure, copyrighted... Whatever. Seriously, these emails are relevant only to a relatively small number of people in the entertainment industry, so publishing them is really nothing more than a "fuck you" to Sony.

Biggest tech story of the last few months

[aaron4801]

Reporting on the emails is classic fair use.

Re:Biggest tech story of the last few months

[wvmarle]

There is a difference between reporting, and wholesale redistribution. Reporting is fair use, but that's not happening (much). Wholesale redistribution is certainly not fair use, and Sony can indeed claim such redistribution violates copyright.

Now the interesting thing is going to be (if this ever gets challenged in court): who owns the copyright over those e-mails? Is it Sony as employer, or are it the individual authors of those e-mails? The received e-mails are certainly not copyright Sony, the copyright on those is owned by those who sent them to Sony employees.

In principle, everything falls under copyright. Even these comments. However by posting it on a public board, we implicitly give Slashdot permission to redistribute it. An e-mail I send to the feedback section of a newspaper also comes with the implicit permission to print and redistribute it in the newspaper. An e-mail one sends to Sony or someone else, however, does normally not have such a permission - it's hard to argue implicit permission to redistribute. This sidestepping the obvious privacy related to e-mail, which is generally meant to be read by the recipient(s) only.

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"...

Re:I think the point...

[ljw1004]

You've got the wrong handle on DMCA...

1. It criminalizes the creation of software designed to circumvent copyright. That's not happening here.

2. It grants"safe harbor" to ISPs and companies against violations*BY THEIR USERS* so long as the company has a takedown & dispute resolution mechanism. In this case Sony claims copyright, and Twitter can absolve itself of responsibility by leaving the user in question to be the one to file a counterclaim (presumably on fair-use grounds)

old /.

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Why hasn't the dump been posted? years ago, there would of been 5 links to the data to sift thru in every article posted for consumption here.

did they DMCA any non-business emails

[raymorris]

Let me startbby saying, "rootkit" Sony sucks. With that out of the way:

The emails mentioned in TFA appear to be business emails from Sony people. Did they send a DMCA notice about any personal emails? Did I miss that somewhere?

Regarding perjury, the DMCA doesn't say that any erroneous or improper notice is perjury. The perjury clause refers to identifying yourself. If I were to send a DMCA notice about content owned by Dice, claiming to be a representative of Dice, that claim that I am Dice's representative would be under penalty of perjury. I'd be in trouble because I'm not actually a representative of Dice.

Any other deficiency in a DMCA notice is likely to be grounds for a civil suit, only, based on damages. It might be tortiuous interference, for example. It wouldn't be perjury.

Re:Are emails copyrighted ?

[Kaenneth]

Everything you create is copyrighted automatically; unless you create it as part of your job, in which case it's owned by whoever paid you.

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.

So let's get this straight

[MikeRT]

They'll suspend the accounts of people like Milo Yiannopoulos for holding the wrong views on things like GamerGate (Milo Yiannopoulos is hardly a troll or a stalker), but someone who is trafficking in stolen IP/personal details they'll reluctantly defend until someone from legal tells them that Twitter will probably get its ass reamed up and down the sidewalk in federal court if it continues to turn a blind eye. Got it.

Is there a list of Sony films in theaters in 2015?

[jonwil]

Is there a list anywhere of Sony produced films hitting theaters in 2015 so I know which films to boycott and not go and see?

I know The Interview is Sony (not that I had any intention of going to see it anyway) and Hobbit is Warner Brothers/New Line (saw it the other day and it was great) but I cant find any information to help me figure out what other theatrical releases of 2015 I should be avoiding (both going to the cinema AND pirating) if I want to avoid Sony.

Re:Is there a list of Sony films in theaters in 20

[ruir]

Boycott all of them...To be honest, IMHO, the worst actors are Sony and Disney, however they are all the same scum and hide behind a MPAA label.

Re:Are emails copyrighted ?

[drinkypoo]

however, in order to protect said automatic copyright, and have legal standing to win a lawsuit for instance, in the u.s. works must be registered with the trademark and copyright office.

Nonsense. That's only true if your lawyers don't have deep pockets, but Sony's do.

You are factually incorrect.

[tlambert]

however, in order to protect said automatic copyright, and have legal standing to win a lawsuit for instance, in the u.s. works must be registered with the trademark and copyright office. this, of course, was not done with the emails. this can be considered dissemination of proprietary and confidential corporate property and trade secrets, which should have at least as strong of a case for sony.. just not via dmca.

Very incorrect, on two counts:

(1) Copyright registration is merely a verifiable record of the date and content, in case of some future claim of plagarism or Copyright infringement by another party. Registration is only required on claims of statutory damages for an infringement suit, and that's valid as long as it occurs within 3 months of publication. For that to be useful to Sony, however, they would have to also establish value for the Copyright work. Since they were able to do this for the "Spectre" script, Twitter took the excerpts down. Email is a different matter.

(2) AT&T USL attempted to pull the "Trade Secret" trick of having their cake and eating it to in the AT&T USL v. The Regents of the University of California at Berkeley. The problem with Trade Secret disclosure is once a secret is disclosed, it's no longer secret. You can Patent something (requires disclosure) or you can Copyright something (also requires disclosure). In exchange for that disclosure, you are then granted certain legal protections, but those protections do not attach to Trade Secrets. For a Trade Secret, in order to collect damages, you, again, have to establish a value for the Secret. But - and this is a big one - you can only collect those damages against the original discloser - you are not permitted to seek out deep pockets. So Sony can take it up with North Korea (or whoever we've decided was responsible this week), but they can't take it up with this Twitter user, unless they can prove he was the disclosing party. So again: any trade secrets in to emails is *gone*.

The other problem is the use of the DMCA in this case: unless you are the Copyright holder, or you are a designated agent acting on behalf of the Copyright holder, you do not have standing, under the law, to assert a DMCA claim on behalf of someone else. This was the problem that a number of the DMCA takedown companies had with their third party takedown notices. This was actually precisely what occurred in the Righthaven v. Wayne Hoehn case.

Re:You are factually incorrect.

[Dog-Cow]

Copyright does not require disclosure. If that were so, significantly more source code would be available for perusal.

Re:You are factually incorrect.

[Immerman]

>The other problem is the use of the DMCA in this case: unless you are the Copyright holder...you do not have standing...to assert a DMCA claim...

So what's the problem? Virtually all business-related correspondence and documents can probably be safely presumed to have been created under work-for-hire agreements which would place the copyrights firmly in Sony's possession. Thus granting them standing.

Re:You are factually incorrect.

[tlambert]

>The other problem is the use of the DMCA in this case: unless you are the Copyright holder...you do not have standing...to assert a DMCA claim...

So what's the problem? Virtually all business-related correspondence and documents can probably be safely presumed to have been created under work-for-hire agreements which would place the copyrights firmly in Sony's possession. Thus granting them standing.

It depends on whether the emails constitute work product or not. Certainly some of the emails which I've seen would not qualify, as they were personal emails. In fact, most of the significantly inflammatory ones were personal emails to business partners and colleagues, rather than business related, other than tangentially. And these are the ones Sony would most want quashed.

For attorney/client communications, it's possible that privilege would attach. Under U.S. law, the attorney would need to be acting as such in connection with the communication in question, and the communication would have had to have been engaged for the purpose of the client seeking legal advice.

Ironically, it would probably take a court to decide whether or not the disclosure of the information to someone who was neither the attorney nor the client would qualify as an exception to privilege. This in turn would likely come down to a matter of due diligence. Even so, if the intent was to commit a crime or a tort (and it's pretty clear some of these emails qualify), then privilege does not attach.

I think the most they can do at this point is assert ownership or get a grant of agency, and issue the DMCA notices, mostly for the scripts and other material, if any, which falls under HIPPA or attorney/client privilege. This will most likely not be very satisfying to Sony, as it will most likely cover material which is being largely withheld anyway.

Re:Thiscould be GOOD

[ledow]

Emails are copyrighted already.

Everything you make is copyrighted, to you.

That people don't understand this is, "weirdly", common.

The question of whether you could enforce action against infringers and/or whether reproducing those emails is against the copyright is another thing entirely and down to local law.

But, pretty much, this post is copyrighted. There may be a line somewhere that assigns the copyright in it to Slashdot (I don't think there is, Facebook tried that and couldn't get away with it), but otherwise it's mine. All comments are the property of the poster, remember.

And when you're talking about the contents of an internal email from a workplace, almost certainly those are the intellectual property of the employer - whether expressly stated or not.

It's not a question of "if".

And I'm pretty sure that a government organisation tasked with intercepting communications has some exception in the law for copying, reading and storing your email for a certain period of time. It's come up in the UK news for GCHQ, for instance.

In the same way you can't sue your ISP for copying your packets to this forum in the first place, or Slashdot for storing them, as there is an inherent permission granted by you posting.

Re:Are emails copyrighted ?

[MrLizard]

Everything you create is copyrighted automatically; unless you create it as part of your job, in which case it's owned by whoever paid you.

Not in my country it's not. You have to register it first otherwise it isn't copyrighted.

If your country is a signatory to the Berne Convention, and it probably is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_treaties) you're wrong. Copyright is automatic upon creation of a work. This post I'm writing, right now, is automatically copyright... the TOS I agree to by posting it here allows[1] Slashdot to present it, archive it, etc. But you're not allowed to distribute it without my consent, except as per fair use and other exemptions, not that I actually give a damn or would even know about it, mind you.

[1]Is it 'allows' or 'allow'? If I read the sentence and think of 'TOS' as a word, 'allows' sounds right. But if I read the sentence and mentally expand TOS to 'Terms Of Service', 'allow' sounds right.

Re:Are emails copyrighted ?

[Idarubicin]

No that is not true. If I create some software I can license it or effectively give it away...

The fact that you - automatically - hold the copyright for the works you create doesn't prevent you from doing either of those things. Indeed, copyright is necessary for you to be able to license the work.

Re:Are emails copyrighted ?

[daremonai]

Nonsense. Business emails are often coming up with some nonsensical strategy, or attempting to paper over its failure. They can get very creative.

The "Safe Harbor" is the point

[rsilvergun]

in order to qualify for the "Safe Harbor" part you have to take down the "infringing" content immediately. No questions asked. Only _after_ you take it down can the person who put it up apply to have it put back up.

It makes it really easy to get stuff silenced and much harder to get it back out there; especially for quasi-legal journalistic sources like leaks.

copywrites to the writer, incl summary

[raymorris]

>. include ones that describe Brad Pitt's reaction to certain movie cuts". If you read the email (God forbid), it seems the content is somewhere in-between personal and private and 80% of it is summarizing an email/text/conversation/whatever that, if anything, would be copyrighted by Brad Pitt

It describes a party contracted with Sony Pictures threatening to breach that contract; a contract to make and publicize a Sony Pictures product. It then addresses what Sony Pictures has done (reassured the other party) and what else Sony needs to do about it (nothing yet). I'm not sure how you can say that a discussion among Sony people about handling a Sony contract dispute isn't a business email.

The copyright goes to the author. If I write about what you did yesterday, I'm the author, and I have copyright. In California, you might have publicity rights, but no copyright on my words. Brad Pitt didn't write the email, so he has no copyright claim.

You asked about a post which DOES quote another offer. Would I have any say as to removal if _your_ post was infringing? Under current law, that's exactly the same as if a breakfast cereal contained oats, honey, and strychnine. It contains something unlawful, and can be removed from distribution. The fact that the unlawful stuff has some lawful stuff mixed in doesn't matter.