Sony Puts News Groups On Legal Notice To Destroy Hacked Data

Sony's attorney has sent a three-page letter to media organizations, including NPR, warning them not to keep, review, publish or make any use of any of the Sony data being put out by hackers.

It's the latest turn in a story that began last month, when hackers crippled Sony's internal network and made off with massive amounts of data from the company, including five Sony films, four of them unreleased, and emails from the companies executives.

The content of some of those emails has deeply embarrassed the company, with stories that have gone viral, and in its strongly-worded legal notice Sony is calling the information "stolen," and asking for it to be destroyed.

The letter is written by one of the country's most famous lawyers, David Boies, who represented former Vice President Al Gore in the Supreme Court case over the disputed Florida votes in the presidential election of 2000.

Re/code editor Arik Hessendahl told Here & Now's Robin Young, "We did receive this letter, and we have and have reviewed a lot of the data that's been leaked. But we have been very selective on what we've reported." Hessendahl added, "for us the story is not about what one person says about another, or the status of a script of a film project and so forth. The story is really about this attack and what it means going forward for one of Hollywood's most powerful studios."