Sony Pictures Demands That News Agencies Delete ‘Stolen’ Data (original) (raw)
Media|Sony Pictures Demands That News Agencies Delete ‘Stolen’ Data
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- Dec. 14, 2014
The lawyer David Boies contacted media organizations on Sunday about the stolen data.Credit...Jabin Botsford/The New York Times
LOS ANGELES — Sony Pictures Entertainment warned media outlets on Sunday against using the mountains of corporate data revealed by hackers who raided the studio’s computer systems in an attack that became public last month.
In a sharply worded letter sent to news organizations, including The New York Times, David Boies, a prominent lawyer hired by Sony, characterized the documents as “stolen information” and demanded that they be avoided, and destroyed if they had already been downloaded or otherwise acquired.
The studio “does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading or making any use” of the information, Mr. Boies wrote in the three-page letter, which was distributed Sunday morning.
Sony’s action comes 20 days after hackers first infiltrated its computer systems and amid silence on the crisis from peer studios that Sony had hoped would publicly voice support. It comes after a flood of damaging media reports based on the hacked documents, which included information on Sony’s salaries, business negotiations, employee health records and private email conversations. One of the most volatile email exchanges, which included racially insensitive banter about President Obama’s imagined preference for black-themed movies, prompted public apologies by Amy Pascal, co-chairwoman of Sony Pictures, and by a prominent producer, Scott Rudin.
Over the weekend, the hackers, who have pressed Sony to withdraw its upcoming comedy “The Interview,” promised further data dumps by Christmas, when the film is scheduled to be released. The plot involves an attempt to assassinate the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Until now, the data has provided a feast for traffic-hungry websites like Fusion and those owned by Gawker Media, along with some mainstream news organizations like Bloomberg, which last week posted an article — without citing names — revealing details of employee medical records that were made public by the hackers.
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