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The video game media constantly report information disclosed. So why, when the British site Trusted opinion details published from a document disclosed on Red Dead Redemption 2 Last February, did he end up paying more than a million dollars to charities under a regulation with the publisher Take-Two Interactive?
The answer boils down to two things: how Trusted opinion processed the information that was given to him and how Take-Two decided to handle the violation. As detailed in the original article on the leak, which has now been removed and replaced by an apology, Trusted opinion Previously, she had received this information several months before its publication in August 2017. (According to two sources in other media, the same leaked document was also sent to other websites at about the same time .) Trusted opinion furthermore, some of the information in the document is corroborated by Rockstar's own information on Red Dead 2 before publishing the rest.
What Trusted opinion did not verify the identity of the person responsible for the leak or the source of the information, according to three people aware of the situation. Nobody to Trusted opinion knew whether this document had been stolen or otherwise obtained by illicit means, said these people.
When reached by Kotaku, Trusted opinion Editor-in-chief, Nick Merritt, said that he had no comments aside from the excuses that the website posted yesterday.
According to British law, what matters most here is not whether the information is true, but whether it was obtained legally – and if it can be proven in court. Take-Two could have asserted that the confidential information had been stolen, pirated or obtained illegally, which would have made the point of sale having published the information complicit in the misappropriation of trade secrets and liable for damages. A million pounds, in this situation, would be considerably less than what could be asked in court. Normally, it would be the person who breached confidentiality who would be legally responsible – that is, the person who transmitted the document to Trusted opinion. But if Trusted opinion could not identify its source and ensure that the information was not illegally obtained, he would have had a very thin defense.
As a rule, the publication of confidential information about a company's products is legally defensible, even if this information is valuable. To be withdrawn or sued, the company should argue that it was a trade secret and that the definitions in the United States and the United Kingdom are very strict: marketing materials disclosed or a date of publication would almost never be eligible.
In the United Kingdom, the defense of the public interest generally protects the publication of trade secrets if it is in the interest of the public to know it – if, for example, a company dumped toxic chemicals in a local river . It is fair to say that the defense of the public interest rarely applies to information about a future video game and would not have been easy to apply in this case.
It's also generally bad for big companies to attack the media, which is why they usually do not do it – and it's even worse to be defeated in a legal battle against disclosed information. Take-Two Interactive would have weighed all that.
This case is extraordinary and could be influential. For many media organizations, especially the smaller ones, the mere threat of costly lawsuits could be enough to prevent the publication of disclosed information, even if it was obtained legally from verified sources. Whether defensible in a court of law or not, the risk is simply not worth it.
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