MPAA Argues That Sony Emails Shouldn't Be Used As Evidence In Google Lawsuit

We've already covered some of the details coming out in the flurry of legal filings in the dispute between Google and Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (helped along by the MPAA which financed and ran Hood's investigation). However, there is one little tidbit mentioned towards the end in one of the MPAA's many filings resisting subpoenas from Google to turn over internal documents. The MPAA's lawyers at Jenner & Block not only argue that much of the material being requested is "privileged," and thus allowing the requests will lead to lawsuits over the legality of those requests, but further argues that the emails in the Sony hack are similarly privileged and should not be available for use in lawsuits:

Quite apart from the policy concerns that arise if lawyers are allowed to use confidential documents first obtained by hackers, the fact that some privileged documents were published in the wake of the Sony hack will trigger subsequent litigation over privilege assertions. Privileged documents obtained by hackers and later published nevertheless remain privileged. Presumably, given Google's apparent interest in the documents, Google will contest the privilege assertions.

This seems like a pretty longshot legal argument. It's pretty typical in business settings that once documents are out there in the public, any legal restrictions on them vanish. The idea that these documents, widely discussed publicly and in the press, would magically be banned from use in a legal case that was brought on because of those revelations is a huge stretch.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story