The movie and music maker Sony has decided that the best way to stop people talking about the hack of its networks is to ask news organisations to stop reporting it.
Sony told some news organisations to stop publishing information contained in documents stolen by hackers who attacked the movie studio’s computer network last month.
The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety published stories reporting that they had each received a letter from David Boies, a lawyer for Sony, demanding that the outlets stop reporting information contained in the documents and immediately destroy them.
The studio “does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading or making any use” of the information, Boies wrote in the letter.
New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told Reuters that : “Any decisions about whether or how to use any of the information will take into account both the significance of the news and the questions of how the information emerged and who has access to it.”
The unidentified hackers have released troves of documents that include employee salaries and financial information, marketing plans and contracts with business partners. Newspapers have obtained some mileage from an exchange in which Co-Chairman Amy Pascal joked about President Barack Obama’s race.
Pascal is meeting civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton, whose spokeswoman says he is weighing whether to call for her resignation.
