After internal e-mails from MediaDefender, a company that seeks to prevent the "spread of illegally traded copyrighted material over the Internet and Peer-to-Peer networks," were leaked, the company sent takedown notices to a number of sites that posted and linked to the information, including isoHunt.com, a bitTorrent search engine and forum, and GPiO.org, a hosting company.

The e-mails, which were leaked by a group that calls itself MediaDefender-Defenders, allegedly contained sensitive corporate information, including details of MediaDefender's anti-piracy strategies, its torrent watchlist, and the effectiveness of its fake torrents, according to Ars Technica.

MediaDefender responded to the dissemination of its emails by sending takedown notices to websites and P2P services that posted and linked to the materials, based both in the United States and abroad. The purported legal basis of the takedown notices was breach of MediaDefender's trade secrets and confidential information.

It appears that the sites and services have not taken down the information in response to MediaDefender's takedown notices. According to BoingBoing, isoHunt responded by pointing out what it perceives to be legal deficiencies in the takedown letter, and several other threat recipients responded that they/their sites were located outside the US and beyond the jurisdiction of the US courts.

The identity of the teenage hacker who initially obtained the emails is still under wraps, but an individual going by the name of "Ethan" has given an interview to Portfolio magazine taking credit for the leak.