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they already have precedent for buying illegally obtained footage and nothing happened to them

http://pagesix.com/2014/05/15/employee-who-leaked-solange-ja... http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/22/inside-harvey-l...

they would be more worried about a gawker/hulk hogan like lawsuit then getting criminally prosecuted

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IANAL, but the first link does not support that conclusion. It is not made clear whether that employee was in fact committing theft and selling stolen goods to TMZ (the hotel threatens to press charges (what charges?) on the employee but did those charges actually go through?).

Furthermore, nothing happening in one case != okay to do whatever you want. I guarantee you TMZ has a team of lawyers that makes sure they stay on the right side of the fine line of plausible deniability.

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