Local music lawyer reacts to Suicide Squad subpoena

Local entertainment lawyer Darren Sanicki, whose past clients include Havana Brown, Dannii Minogue and Cat Stevens (Yusuf), has weighed in on the legal dispute between Atlantic Records and Reddit.

“I feel there is enough doubt that application for a subpoena by Atlantic Records should be denied,” Sanicki told TMN.

On July 27, Atlantic Records issued a subpoena to the Supreme Court of the State of New York after the lead single from Suicide Squad’s #1 soundtrack album, Twenty One Pilot’s Heathens, was leaked on Reddit’s website.

Since then, Reddit have issued a responseclaiming Atlantic Records are undertaking nothing more than a “fishing expedition”. Reddit’s lawyers argue that Atlantic’s claims of breach do not meet the legal requirements for pre-action disclosure, while also discrediting the overall legitimacy of the breach and whether the act constitutes a breach of contract.

“I don’t have a problem with Atlantic doing all it can to protect its investment,” said Sanicki. “Particularly whether they have been ‘done over’ by an employee. I don’t think any ‘law breakers’ should be able to hide behind an anonymous file-hosting service or IP address.

“However, this isn’t a criminal matter or ‘breaking the law’ where public interest comes into consideration,” he added. “It is a commercial matter”.

Sanicki believes that although Atlantic are taking justified courses of action to protect themselves and the company’s investments, the case will not get very far even if the application is successful.

“Given that the Dropfile.to file has expired and the Reddit user who uploaded this file created an account “twentyoneheathens”, specifically to leak the file, and has since deactivated the account. Catching the culprit seems a longshot at best,” Sanicki said.

However, Sanicki commented on Reddit’s “fishing expedition” accusations, proposing that the incident may have been carried out by a hacker, instead of an Atlantic Records employee who had obtained the file pre-release.

“The thing that does stand-out is that it probably is a ‘fishing expedition’,” he said. “There is no evidence to confirm that the uploader is actually an employee of Atlantic Records. It may well be a hacker.

“I’m not sure Atlantic have enough to really go on,” he added. “I have just read a feed suggesting it may have been someone hacking into a Twenty One Pilots band member’s Instagram account.”