Howard Stringer, Sony Corp CEO, spoke to shareholders about recent hacker attacks on the company in a meeting in Tokyo.
"We believe that we first became the subject of attack because we tried to protect our IP (intellectual property), our content, in this case video games," the CEO explained.
"These are our corporate assets, and there are those that don't want us to protect them, they want everything to be free."
According to Reuters, during the meeting there was a call from a shareholder for the CEO to step down, but Stringer made no direct comment on the suggestion.
Sony is currently facing a lawsuit over the attacks on PlayStation Network and the Sony Online Entertainment Network.