I’m not a disinterested third party. Much of the squabbling between Ms. Pascal and Mr. Rudin was about a movie that’s about to begin shooting, “Steve Jobs,” for which I wrote the screenplay, so my name comes up from time to time. The widely published documents that were stolen include an email to Ms. Pascal in which I advocated going to Tom Cruise for the lead role (I did), a second email from one executive to another speculating that I’m broke (I’m fine) and a third that suggested that I might be romantically involved with a woman whose book I’m using as source material for a new script (I wish). 
 
 Image Aaron Sorkin Credit Kevin Scanlon for The New York Times 
 
 And because I and two movies of mine get a little dinged up, I feel I have the credibility to say this: I don’t care. Because the minor insults that were revealed are such small potatoes compared to the fact that they were revealed. Not by the hackers, but by American journalists helping them. 
 
 It’s not a proud day for Hollywood either. This is a town of powerful people — leaders and risk-takers who create things that have the power to start and change conversations. So why has it been so awfully quiet out here? 
 
 We create movie moments. Wouldn’t it be a movie moment if the other studios invoked the NATO rule and denounced the attack on Sony as an attack on all of us, and our bedrock belief in free expression? If the Writers Guild and Directors Guild stood by their members? If the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the movie industry in Washington, knocked on the door of Congress and said we’re in the middle of an ongoing attack on one of America’s largest exports? We’re coming to the end of the first reel; it’s time to introduce our heroes. 
 
 I understand that news outlets routinely use stolen information. That’s how we got the Pentagon Papers, to use an oft-used argument. But there is nothing in these documents remotely rising to the level of public interest of the information found in the Pentagon Papers. 
 
 Do the emails contain any information about Sony breaking the law? No. Misleading the public? No. Acting in direct harm to customers, the way the tobacco companies or Enron did? No. Is there even one sentence in one private email that was stolen that even hints at wrongdoing of any kind? Anything that can help, inform or protect anyone? 
 
 The co-editor in chief of Variety tells us he decided that the leaks were — to use his word — “newsworthy.” I’m dying to ask him what part of the studio’s post-production notes on Cameron Crowe’s new project is newsworthy. So newsworthy that it’s worth carrying out the wishes of people who’ve said they’re going to murder families and who have so far done everything they’ve threatened to do. Newsworthy. As the character Inigo Montoya said in “The Princess Bride,” I do not think it means what you think it means. 
 
 So much for ever getting a good review from Variety again. And so much for our national outrage over the National Security Agency reading our stuff. It turns out some of us have no problem with it at all. We just vacated that argument. ||||| After days of silence, Sony Pictures is now warning media outlets not to use information from the massive hacking by the so-called Guardians of Peace. The Post's Cecilia Kang has the latest – including actor Bill Murray's involvement in the Ghostbusters franchise. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post) 
 
 The Pentagon Papers. Climategate. Wikileaks. The celebrity nude photo scandal. Confidential information stolen and leaked. 
 
 News organizations have long used material, stolen by others, when they deem it newsworthy, whether it’s from the files of the government or private companies and individuals. Lots of people have tried to stop them. Rarely have they succeeded. 
 
 The latest example is Sony Pictures Entertainment. Its lawyer sent a letter to media organizations on Sunday warning them not to use a trove of corporate data dumped by hackers who infiltrated the company’s corporate servers last month. And it wasn’t just any lawyer. The sender of the “Dear General Counsel” letter was celebrated litigator David Boies. 
 
 The massive hacking of Sony Pictures ranges from executives' e-mails disparaging actors to leaked personal information. The Post's Cecilia Kang explains what has been revealed so far, and why it could get much worse for the production company. (Jayne W. Orenstein/The Washington Post) 
 
 Can Sony, even with David Boies, force the media to stop reporting the details of the hack or make news organizations destroy the documents, as Boies is demanding? 
 
 According to legal experts, probably not. Unless the publications themselves stole the documents, the courts have blanketed them with broad First Amendment protections that are hard to overcome. So if Sony doesn’t have much of a legal leg to stand on, what’s the point of sending threatening letters to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Gawker and other media outlets? 
 
 Perhaps to scare them. Nobody relishes the prospect of costly legal battle. Media organizations might postpone publication of stories about the hack while they consult their lawyers, or exercise more caution and discretion in what they publish, weighing the real news value as opposed to the click quotient. The letter also plays to some news organizations’ ethical sensibilities. Some already feel squeamish about using stolen material, though it hasn’t stopped them. 
 
 In the past week, the media have published hundreds of stories about the personal e-mails and corporate documents, reporting on Sony executive salaries, business dealings and e-mail exchanges in which executives took shots at President Obama and Angelina Jolie, among others. It’s one of the largest document dumps ever to hit a major corporation. 
 
 The letter sent by Boies said the stolen information includes material protected by attorney-client privilege, trade secrets and private information otherwise legally protected. 
 
 Sony “does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading, or making any use of the Stolen Information,” the letter said. It warned Sony would have “no choice but to hold you responsible from any damage or loss resulting from such use or dissemination by you.” 
 
 University of California at Los Angeles law professor Eugene Volokh explained in a blog post for The Washington Post that as long as media outlets don’t participate in stealing information, they are generally protected by the First Amendment if they use it in their reporting. 
 
 That what the Supreme Court ruled in Bartnicki v. Vopper, a 2001 case about a radio host who played a tape of an illegally recorded conversation left in his mailbox. On the tape, union leaders in the middle of a contract dispute with the school board discussed taking violent action if their demands weren’t met. The union leaders sued, saying the radio host violated federal and state wiretapping laws that prohibit dissemination of stolen information. 
 
 The court sided with the media. The case turned on two things: the fact the radio host didn’t intercept the conversation himself and claimed not to know it was illegally recorded, and the fact that conversation was newsworthy. A “stranger’s illegal conduct does not suffice to remove the First Amendment shield from speech about a matter of public concern,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority. 
 
 That case doesn’t exactly fit the facts of the Sony hack. For one thing, media outlets know the information was stolen. 
 
 But in another case from 1969, reporters did know that photocopied documents given to them by former employees of Sen. Thomas Dodd (D-Conn.) were taken without permission. Dodd sued investigative reporters Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson. The D.C. Circuit Court in Pearson v. Dodd said giving photocopies to reporters didn’t deprive Dodd of a property right to the documents, and the reporters didn’t intrude on Dodd’s privacy by publishing information of public concern that was stolen by someone else. 
 
 Sony might argue the stolen information isn’t newsworthy for First Amendment purposes — for example, an e-mail from movie producer Scott Rudin calling Jolie a “minimally talented spoiled brat.” The definition of what’s newsworthy isn’t clear, but is generally forgiving to publishers, Volokh told The Post in a phone interview. Even seemingly petty details could be deemed valuable to public discussion. “Personal opinions about Angelina Jolie might be newsworthy because they reflect on the behavior of two really important business actors,” Volokh said. 
 
 But there are limits to what newspapers can do in the name of press freedom. Volokh said there are two types of information that the media could get in trouble for publishing. 
 
 The first is personal information about a particular individual — details about an extramarital affair or the medical records of a low-level employee whose health, unlike that of a U.S. president, isn’t of public concern. Bloomberg published an article last week that reveals information about Sony employees’ private health records without naming names. 
 
 But even in such cases, Sony couldn’t sue, Volokh said. Only the person whose private information was made public could. 
 
 The media could also get in trouble for publishing copyrighted material. Re/Code reported the stolen data includes five unreleased Sony films. Even e-mails are protected by copyright. Paraphrasing or excerpting an e-mail isn’t likely to infringe on copyright, but publication of the full text might, Volokh said. 
 
 On the other hand, a strong letter from a lawyer tends to get the attention of editors and their corporate legal departments. Stories can get slowed down or even vetoed as not worth the risk from a news standpoint. Right now, news organizations appear to be pretty freewheeling with the Sony information, though some journalists already have reservations about publishing stolen material unless it exposes some significant wrongdoing. 
 
 “The more Sony Pictures data keeps leaking, the more my moral compass spins like a weather vane in a hurricane,” Variety co-editor-in-chief Andrew Wallenstein wrote in an op-ed titled “Why Publishing Stolen Sony Data Is Problematic but Necessary.” “It’s getting harder for me to report on the contents of Sony’s leak without wondering whether I’m somehow complicit with these nefarious hackers by relaying the details of seemingly every pilfered terabyte.” 
 
 But in today’s social-media environment, the simple fact someone else leaked private material becomes news, whether or not a publication chooses to reproduce it. That’s what happened with the nude photo hack of Hollywood celebrities, during which many outlets publicized the pictures without publishing them even as they condemned them as a grotesque invasion of privacy. 
 
 “These [Sony] documents are neither the JLaw nude photos nor are they Snowden’s cache of national security documents,” Anne Helen Petersen wrote for Buzzfeed. “Yet when it comes to future handling of such information, the gray area in which they reside — between public and private, between prurient and illuminating — might not be the exception, but the new normal.” 
 
 She sees a function for journalists now. “The new role of journalists, for better or for worse, isn’t as gatekeepers, but interpreters: If they don’t parse it, others without the experience, credentials, or mindfulness toward protecting personal information certainly will.” 
 
 Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Justice John Paul Stevens as chief justice. ||||| Sony Pictures Entertainment (SNE) requested news outlets stop disclosing material from a devastating computer hack as its studio chief made plans to meet a civil-rights leader after the exposure of a racially tinged e-mail exchange. 
 
 Media companies should destroy the stolen information and will be held responsible for damages from its publication, attorney David Boies wrote to news organizations, including Bloomberg News and the New York Times (NYT), in a Dec. 14 letter. 
 
 Sony Pictures “does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading, or making any use of the stolen information, and to request your cooperation in destroying the stolen information,” Boies wrote. Failure to comply means Sony “will have no choice but to hold you responsible for any damage or loss.” 
 
 The Sony Corp. (6758) unit is widening its efforts to stem damage from the release of employee salaries, health records, movie stars’ fees and e-mails never intended for public consumption. Among those whose words have come back to haunt her is studio chief Amy Pascal, who last year bantered in an e-mail exchange with producer Scott Rudin about whether U.S. President Barack Obama might favor movies with black casts. 
 
 Photographer: STR/AFP via Getty Images Movie posters for the premiere of the film "The Interview" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, California, on Dec. 11, 2014. Close Movie posters for the premiere of the film "The Interview" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel... Read More Close Open Photographer: STR/AFP via Getty Images Movie posters for the premiere of the film "The Interview" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, California, on Dec. 11, 2014. 
 
 Pascal plans to meet the Reverend Al Sharpton this week, Sharpton’s spokeswoman, Jacky Johnson, said in an e-mail. Pascal, who runs Sony’s film studio as co-chairman of the unit, called her own words “insensitive and inappropriate” in a statement last week, and Rudin also apologized. 
 
 Tokyo’s Support 
 
 Pascal told Bloomberg News last week she has the support of Sony Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai. 
 
 Sony declined to comment on how its management is handling the response to the hacking, a spokesman in Tokyo wrote in an e-mail. Sony fell 3.6 percent to 2,353 yen at 2:05 p.m. in Tokyo. The Japan-traded shares have fallen more than 7 percent since the hack on Sony Pictures, based in Culver City, California, was made public on Nov. 25. 
 
 Investigators into the unprecedented cyber-attack have linked it to “The Interview,” a comedy that depicts the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and is set for release on Christmas Day. 
 
 The hack reaches to the highest level of the parent company based in Tokyo. CEO Hirai personally approved scenes in “The Interview” and gave instructions to tone down the scene depicting the Korean leader’s fiery death, according to e-mails made public by the hackers. 
 
 Photographer: Nick Ut via AP Photo Pedestrians cross a street in front of the Sony Pictures Entertainment headquarters in Culver City, Calif. Close Pedestrians cross a street in front of the Sony Pictures Entertainment headquarters in... Read More Close Open Photographer: Nick Ut via AP Photo Pedestrians cross a street in front of the Sony Pictures Entertainment headquarters in Culver City, Calif. 
 
 Boies Letter 
 
 Over the weekend, hackers released more data and news outlets reported that the script and other details from the next movie in the James Bond spy series were stolen. In addition to the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, Sony hired crisis public-relations adviser Rubenstein Communications Inc. to aid in the response and technology security firm Mandiant to help the investigation. 
 
 The stolen information includes material covered by U.S. and foreign legal doctrines protecting attorney-client privilege and attorney work product, Boies said in the letter to the news publishers. 
 
 Ty Trippet, a spokesman for Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, declined to comment. 
 
 Sony Pictures has reached out to other major Hollywood studios seeking letters of support, according to a person familiar with the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. 
 
 Release Plans 
 
 While Pascal said there would be no changes to “The Interview” or its release plans, Crackle, a Sony online video site, has pushed back the release date of an upcoming hacker movie “The Throwaways,” trade publication Variety reported. 
 
 E-mails from the account of Pascal, who supported the film internally, have produced some of the most revealing details. Some cast the 56-year-old executive as waffling on whether to proceed with a project on Steve Jobs, then asking Rudin to bring the movie back to Sony. 
 
 Shonda Rhimes, one of the most successful television producers in Hollywood, on Twitter called the exchanges discussing Obama as “racist.” 
 
 Ava DuVernay, the director of “Selma” who last week became the first black woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe for film directing, has spoken out, as has actor Kevin Hart, who was called a “whore” by a Sony executive for seeking additional compensation related to his social media presence. 
 
 Rudin also called heiress Megan Ellison, a producing and financing partner on Sony films, “bipolar.” 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Anousha Sakoui in Los Angeles at asakoui@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net Kevin Miller ||||| Stunned by a massive leak of sensitive documents, Sony Pictures Enterprises embarked Sunday on an attempt to contain the crisis by discouraging further media coverage of the leaked emails, which have embarrassed Hollywood stars and the studio's top executives. 
 
 Lawyer David Boies, writing on Sony's behalf to the Los Angeles Times and other news organizations, described the leaked material as "stolen information" and called on media outlets to destroy emails or other Sony documents in their possession. 
 
 First Amendment lawyers said that any attempt to block further publication of the material was likely to fail, and crisis management specialists said the effort could do Sony more harm than good. 
 
 The attempt to suppress coverage of the leaked information underscored how few options Sony has in responding to anonymous hackers who have thrown its business into turmoil, and who have shown no signs of relenting. 
 
 The hackers released a trove of sensitive data starting Nov. 24, including salaries of top executives and Social Security numbers of thousands of employees. The breach is expected to cost Sony tens of millions of dollars in computer security upgrades and damage control measures. 
 
 One series of emails showed studio Co-chairman Amy Pascal joking with producer Scott Rudin over whether President Obama prefers black-themed films such as "The Butler." Pascal and Rudin both apologized, but industry analysts have speculated that the emails could jeopardize the jobs of both Pascal and Chairman Michael Lynton. 
 
 A group calling itself Guardians of Peace has claimed responsibility, demanding that Sony cancel the Dec. 25 release of "The Interview," a comedy depicting a fictional assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The FBI is investigating the hack. 
 
 In his letter to media outlets, Boies wrote that the documents are "protected under U.S. and foreign legal doctrines protecting attorney-client privileged communications ... as well as private financial and other confidential information and communications." 
 
 Sony "does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading, or making any use of the stolen information, or making any use of the stolen information," wrote Boies, whose clients have included Microsoft Corp. and former Vice President Al Gore. 
 
 The Times stood by its coverage. 
 
 "The data breach involving Sony Pictures has resulted in the release of information about the movie industry that is newsworthy," said Times editor Davan Maharaj. "We have reported on this material in a manner consistent with our editorial standards, and we will continue to do so." 
 
 The letter was also sent to Bloomberg News, the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter, among other news organizations. 
 
 Eugene Volokh, a 1st Amendment expert and UCLA law professor, said it was unlikely that Sony would be able to prevail against news organizations in court. 
 
 "Sony is obviously a big business," Volokh said. "It is an important business both to its stockholders and to the country in a sense because it has a significant impact on the culture of the country and how it is that business is done in Hollywood is something that I take is of considerable, legitimate public interest." 
 
 Jim Ewert, an attorney who specializes in 1st Amendment cases, said court decisions including the 1971 Pentagon Papers ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court give the news media the right to publish the documents released by the hackers. 
 
 "So long as media outlets didn't participate in the illegal taking of the information, they are protected in using the information in any way they see fit," said Ewert, who is general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. 
 
 Several specialists in crisis public relations suggested that by turning the spotlight on the news media, Sony executives may be trying to deflect attention away from their own actions, including the decision to green-light a film that had the potential for inflaming tensions with North Korea. 
 
 "It doesn't seem wise of Sony to undermine its valid need for protection of the intellectual property of its businesses, employees and artists with a futile attempt to shield information from sunshine," said Janet Janjigian, executive managing director of Carmen Group West. "By trying to shift the conversation and combining both, it will end up with neither." 
 
 Instead of the media, Sony should be focused on North Korea and perceptions that it was behind the cyberattack, said Chris Lehane, a crisis management expert who worked in the Clinton White House. 
 
 "It does seem to me you ought to be using the North Korea piece of this as a sword and the shield as opposed to attacking the Fourth Estate," Lehane said. "This is a situation when you have, presumably, the involvement of North Korea at the same time as you have a movie coming out on the subject." 
 
 That view was seconded by Ashley McCown of public relations company Solomon McCown & Co. 
 
 "This [letter] is what everyone is going to focus on if Sony doesn't put anything else out there," she said. "And I think Sony is going to be criticized for it." 
 
 Sony representatives declined to comment beyond Boies' letter. 
 
 The Sony hack has captivated — and struck fear into — the entertainment industry. Many analysts believe it will force studios to upgrade their computer networks, and will also lead executives to be more careful about what they say in emails. 
 
 The fallout from the hack shows no signs of letting up. On Sunday, a message claiming to be from the hackers said the group would refrain from releasing individual private emails if they write in and ask. 
 
 "Message to SPE Staffers," the message said. "We have a plan to release emails and privacy of the Sony Pictures employees. If you don't want your privacy to be released, tell us your name and business title to take off your data."
– Sony is calling on news organizations to stop publishing the mountain of information coming out of hackers' breach of company data. After the emergence of material ranging from Hollywood pay to personal attacks on Angelina Jolie, a letter to the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Gawker, and other media organizations called on them to destroy any material from the leak. It's "stolen information," says the letter from leading lawyer David Boies, and it's "protected under US and foreign legal doctrines protecting attorney-client privileged communications," the Los Angeles Times reports. Sony has written to other film studios seeking their support, Bloomberg reports. Though the letter threatens legal action, many experts say it's unlikely that news agencies will be held legally accountable for publishing the material, thanks to First Amendment protections, the Washington Post reports. Cases in the past involving the publishing of information stolen by an outside figure and provided to the media have been found in favor of the media. "So long as media outlets didn't participate in the illegal taking of the information, they are protected in using the information in any way they see fit," an attorney tells the Los Angeles Times. In other reactions: Aaron Sorkin, whose Jobs script surfaces in the hacked material, is swinging at the media, writing in the New York Times that those who publish leaked information are "giving material aid to criminals" who have threatened violence against Sony employees and their families. As for the "newsworthy" defense: "there is nothing in these documents remotely rising to the level of public interest of ... the Pentagon Papers," he notes. There are two ways the media could face legal trouble, an expert tells the Washington Post: one, for publishing private information, such as medical records, of Sony workers—though the workers, not the studio, would have to sue. The media could also be held accountable under copyright law for publishing full emails. Finally, the New York Times reports that Sony's CEO in Japan stepped in to tone down a scene in The Interview involving the Kim Jong Un's head being blown up. Not in 25 years has a Sony CEO interfered with Sony Pictures' filmmaking, insiders tell the paper. But while Americans might see Kim as an object of comedy, Japan sees a serious threat. Kazuo Hirai called on the studio to "remove images of flaming hair and chunks of skull" from the scene, the Times reports.