Stop the presses. While you’re at it, stop the blog posts, the tweets, the status updates, and everything else. Following the hack heard ’round the world, Sony Pictures Entertainment has been warning news outlets to refrain from publishing the fruits of the hackers’ theft: “If you do not comply with this request, and the stolen information is used or disseminated by you in any manner, Sony Pictures Entertainment will have no choice but to hold you responsible for any damage or loss arising from such use or dissemination by you.” (In layman’s terms that means, “Pretty please…”)

+ Meanwhile, Aaron Sorkin wrote an op-ed arguing that the media shouldn’t be helping the hackers: “If you close your eyes you can imagine the hackers sitting in a room, combing through the documents to find the ones that will draw the most blood. And in a room next door are American journalists doing the same thing.” If you close your eyes, you can also imagine a world before hacks, leaks, recorded conversations, and captured videos swept through the global villlage at Internet speed. But those days are gone. Many of 2014’s most explosive stories started as leaks — we saw (a Staten Island chokehold), heard (an NBA owner’s racist rant), and read (the NSA’s methods and mandates) material that no one expected to be shared. When it comes to personal ethics, I actually agree with a lot of what Sorkin has to say. But the issue is moot. The future will not be embargoed.