I spent the following month trying to take it down.

I want to describe that month, because it is the most money I have ever spent on anything and it is the least I have ever gotten.

Ronald’s firm assigned four people. We went after it on every theory available: copyright, since the recording originated on Russell’s system and the residual rights were arguable; privacy and the depiction of a minor; the recording statutes of two states; the platforms’ own policies, which prohibit exactly this and which are enforced by a queue.

Eleven copies. We got four down in six weeks. Two more came back within a month under different accounts, one of them with the title changed to include the word RECOVERED.

The original — nine hundred and forty thousand plays — is hosted by a company that responded to a formal demand with an eleven-line letter explaining that the material is newsworthy, that the subject is a matter of public record, that the events were reported by four national outlets at the time, and that the request was declined.

They are not wrong. That is the part. Every word of that letter is correct.