Michael Jackson: Sony issue a dire warning

Doctor Conrad Murray - whose office bears the sign "716 day with no dead international megastars on my watch" - is currently trying to prove his prescription services had nothing to do with the death of Michael Jackson.

As part of this process, he's trying to get all the footage of Jackson's rehearsals for those Greenwich gigs released. TMZ have seen the paperwork. Murray is convinced it'll show that Jacko was so ill at the time, a good puff of wind or a poorly made Pot Noodle could have killed him, and so take the heat off the Propofol script.

Sony, though, are reluctant. They start by murmuring that it'd cost a lot of money to transcribe all the tapes, and then start to have hives about the security:

Sony lawyers say, "When they were transported to the Sony lot in Culver City, the transport in an unmarked truck was accompanied by armed guards in the dead of the night."

When the tapes were in an editing bay, security guards were posted outside the door and no Internet access was allowed in the room.

I love the idea that they stipulate it was an unmarked truck, rather than something from the fleet of trucks with the "Sony transporting Michael Jackson rehearsal footage" livery you'd have been expecting.

Then, some chilling words:

And a Sony honcho also submitted a declaration which says the videos "have a high monetary value inherent in their potential for future uses. Those uses include one or more 'anniversary editions.'"

One or more. One or more.

Sony have a point, though: why the hell should an investigation into the death of a man, or another man's attempts to prove his innocence in that death, be in any way allowed to interfere with their attempts to squeeze a few more dollars from the corpse.