Prof. Kirtley Assesses Counsel's Letter to Media Recipients of Hacked Sony Information

Professor Jane Kirtley was quoted in a Reuters column by Alison Frankel, assessing the legal significance of a letter threatening news organizations who received information hacked from Sony Pictures Entertainment with legal consequences if they published it. She pointed out that the Supreme Court's 2001 decision, Bartnicki v. Vopper, would probably protect dissemination by innocent recipients provided the material was deemed to be of legitimate public interest. However, she noted that "I would be concerned that this triggered ethical obligations" under the canons of ethics for the in-house lawyers who received the hacked information.