Last week, Sony issued legal threats to Val Broeksmit, the musician who began publishing big chunks of the company's hacked e-mails—and to Twitter, the platform Broeksmit was using to broadcast the e-mails to the world.

Now the movie studio has taken the first steps of following through on those threats. But its first round of attacks—a copyright demand to remove 20 published e-mails—has mostly fallen flat, apparently rebuffed by Twitter.

Broeksmit is a London-based rock-and-roller currently on a year-long jaunt to California to finish up a musical project. Once he heard news about how Sony's hacked e-mails were dumped online, he started going through them and publishing selected excerpts himself, through his Twitter account, @BikiniRobotArmy.

On December 22, Sony sent a letter threatening Twitter and demanding that Broeksmit's account be deleted. That didn't happen, and the tweets continued. On December 24, Sony took an additional step—it sent a DMCA takedown notice to Twitter, saying that the e-mails Broeksmit was publishing are copyrighted.

The takedown notice, from Sony's UK-based copyright enforcement agent, names 20 Broeksmit tweets it says should be removed for copyright reasons. A full week after Sony sent its DMCA notice, nearly all of Broeksmit's tweeted material remains online. Only two published e-mails appear to have been deleted, both apparently segments of the script for Spectre, the upcoming James Bond movie.

Other e-mails that Broeksmit published, and Sony objects to, include ones that describe Brad Pitt's reaction to certain movie cuts and Sony's full release schedule through 2015. Other tweets describe who might direct the upcoming "Cleopatra" movie and how much he'll get paid. "#AmyPascal and #StevenBersch discuss a kind way to tell #KevinCostner they hate his film," reads another tweet, describing an attachment that Sony objected to, from December 15.

Those e-mails remain up on Twitter, despite Sony's demands that they come down because of copyright.

It isn't clear how many other people, if any, have taken Broeksmit's approach of self-publishing Sony's hacked e-mails. Twitter didn't respond to requests for comment on this story.

Assuming that the company left 18 out of 20 Broeksmit tweets up as a deliberate decision and isn't just taking a "wait and see" approach, Twitter's reaction to Sony's demands here suggest the company will take a hard line in defending published material of people who decide, for whatever reason, to become "citizen journalists" in the wake of major news events.

Twitter isn't communicating much with Broeksmit about its process, either.

"At first I thought maybe Twitter had caved in to Sony," Broeksmit said in an interview with Ars. "As I read between the lines I figured that Twitter is still on my side, because they kind of said—here's where the line is, and we can't cross this line."

Sony's legal options don't end at copyright notices. In the letters to Twitter and media organizations, it has said publication of its stolen e-mails violate numerous California and federal laws in addition to the Copyright Act, including Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, California's Stolen Property Law, and the Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

Publishing decisions

Broeksmit's process is similar to what some news outlets went through earlier in the month: he decides what e-mails might be of public interest and redacts personal information like e-mail addresses and Kevin Costner's phone number. Unlike most professional journalists, Broeksmit doesn't get feedback from colleagues about what to publish, nor legal advice. "I don't know where the line is," he said in a previous interview with Ars.

Given Twitter's well-known 140-character limit, he's also publishing Sony's e-mails with minimal context and commentary.

Asked about whether Sony might have legitimate reasons for wanting to keep some e-mails off Twitter, Broeksmit again acknowledged he's unsure of where the line should be in terms of what can be published.

"I don't know, maybe it shouldn't be on Twitter," he said. "I just figured, fuck Sony. I guess I'm being reactive. I'm still angry, a bit. It's like they're handing me a big bill."

Broeksmit said he began self-publishing e-mails only after he shared e-mails he thought were important with The New York Times and Reuters, and they remained unpublished.

"No one had been writing about it," he said. "The only thing that was reported on were the funny e-mails.

Broeksmit said other e-mails he's found relate to SEC investigations, which he believes could be indications of financial fraud.

"The finance experts I have consulted have been very interested in what I have," he said.

As for the two tweets that were taken down, Twitter is giving Broeksmit an opportunity to file a counter-notice through its DMCA process, and he intends to take it. His first goal for 2015? "I guess find a lawyer," he said.

And he'll keep tweeting. "I put up some great ones the other night," he added.