Considering copyright violation to be hacking seems pretty out there to me, and I haven't seen clear evidence that Twitter actually holds that point of view.

If transferring ownership of a physical data storage device does not constitute transferring ownership of the data stored therein, then I don't know what does.

When it comes to the cloud, that sounds more to me like leasing storage rights, but I'm no lawyer.

I think you misunderstand US copyright law. With few exceptions, almost all pictures and emails are copyright by whoever took the picture or wrote the email. Is there some reason that these would not qualify?

I believe excerpts of pictures or emails taken for news reporting qualifies as fair use. It's not like they showed the whole picture, they just cropped his face with the crack pipe in his mouth. Likewise, the full emails where they discuss illegally peddling influence and pay for play with all the headers wasn't published. Just select emails with enough metadata to give context.

Copyright doesn't supersede the first amendment right of free press. At worst, the NYPost is on the hook for $150,000 per violation. They can probably make that much and then some on the scoop. It may be worth it to them, even if they lose on a fair use argument. It's a huge scoop in October of an election year.

I probably do. This is the first I've heard of that.

Regardless, the NY Post article in question did not publish any of the pictures and I doubt the same copyright law applies to emails.

"Northeastern University Law Review: Do Not Forward: Why Passing Along an Email May Constitute Copyright Infringement"

http://nulawreview.org/extralegalrecent/do-not-forward-why-p...

However, the issue has not been well tested in courts. The piece ends by saying "Congress should act to clarify whether and when forwarding an email infringes the author’s reproduction right in the work."

Whether the repair shop owner had copyright to the content is totally irrelevant. He had legal possession of the drive, and handed it to a journalist who found something newsworthy on it.

Almost every single major story every told in modern history will contain essentially the same type of information transfer, and it is not illegal for the journalist to use this information or publish it if it’s newsworthy.

Sometimes a source can go to jail for sharing the information. But almost certainly that won’t happen in this case, because there is no evidence that the repair shop owner did anything wrong. In fact, he was the one who called the FBI!

No. He handed it to a lawyer working for the President of the US' personal lawyer (Rudy Guiliani), not a journalist. Guiliani handed it to the NY Post and then worked with them.