What Warners were up to does seem excessive. I suspect that if they could they would do it to every file on the site and have all the links directed to Warner sales areas.

At the very least, that's gross incompetence leading to material damage. There must be a legal term for that. Let us hope such ignorant actions are properly punished. You can't just (badly) program a bot and set it off killing things FFS...

I think malicious prosecution might cover the term you are looking for.