This is a horrible precedent. This was only a digital hack, that unfortunately violated many personal privacy's. But what happens when fundamentalist, a la ISIS, decide to do physical harm for any film or song that humours their twisted ideology - will the film studios stop releases then?
Another film set to premier on Dec 25 is Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper" (yea I know, a Christmas classic /s) an easy film to misunderstand and sure to rally those oppose to the US coalition in Iraq/Afghanistan, if threats start about this film from fundamentalists will the studios respond?
*cross post from the dead WSJ discussion thread
"Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, Carmike Cinemas and Cineplex Entertainment have all decided against showing the film."
This has essentially happened already. Comedy central censors South Park in a direct response to threats made against them regarding depictions of Mohammed.
Are you kidding us? The entire world will now want to watch this film. One wonders if this isn't a hail mary pass by Sony....
With demand now through the roof to watch this film, I'd bet we'll see some innovative work by Sony to release this film that satisfies that demand in a legal way.
> But what happens when fundamentalist, a la ISIS, decide to do physical harm for any film or song that humours their twisted ideology - will the film studios stop releases then?
I agree with you, they shouldn't be caving to threats. But they can't possibly believe that this is a credible threat. We don't have a whole lot of North Koreans emigrating here. TMZ has a slightly more likely theory [1]. Rather than genuine fear of attacks from North Korea, they contend that Sony simply wanted to bury the movie without looking weak.
"We're told the execs are actually viewing the latest threat as having a silver lining ... the threat of a 9/11-type attack will make so many theaters pull the flick themselves -- and Sony won't have to do it....Sony execs want the bleeding to stop"
I think theaters are afraid of cyber attack and not a terrorist attack (physical)..... I guess pretty soon a cyber attack will be classified as a terrorist attack, legally speaking.
There is more than one horrible precedent, in that the plot of the movie from what I've read, is the an assassination of a contemporary country leader by specific name. AFAIK that barrier of good taste has never been crossed by Hollywood before. Close, but advocating assassination of a current world leader by name?
Of course, two wrongs not making a right, and all that.
My gut level guess is the whole thing is being orchestrated for PR, lets call it the "snakes on a plane part 2" marketing plan. Hoping for the netflix revenue.
Part of me secretly wishes that Sony would just put out a press release saying "You know what? Fuck it. The Interview will be on Netflix on Christmas Day for 24 hours. No extra charge. So stop downloading our Excel sheets and enjoy a movie. Merry Christmas."
Well it they wanted to get angry they could go all Oatmeal on them and immediately release the BluRay with all of the profits going some cause antithetical to the hackers.
That's a shame. I'm not a huge fan of Rogen's, but I saw a screening of this a few weeks ago (the first public screening, actually), and it was probably my favorite work of his so far. It's weird to read it framed as "a movie about the assassination of a sitting foreign leader," because it didn't feel that way. Yes, that plot is technically true, but it feels like its just background for the comedy. It's actually very light for most of the time, with James Franco joking around with the leader and learning his more human side.
I don't want to give anything else away. It's just a shame.
Jealous! I know his stuff isn't that intellectually engaging, but I've enjoyed his previous stints with James Franco while enjoying a beer and hanging out with friends. There will have to be some direct to video form to get the film out there to compensate the cost.
A line at the end of the article caught my eye: "Hackers claim to have taken at least 100 terabytes of Sony data, or about 10 times of the amount stored in the Library of Congress."
Which struck me as very small. So I did some digging and it looks like as of 2009 (almost 6 years ago) the Library of Congress had 74 TB of online data available to the Internet. Additionally the U.S. Library of Congress Web Capture team claims that "as of March 2014, the Library has collected about 525 terabytes of web archive data" and that it adds about 5 terabytes per month. That just includes the web archive team which is one of 8 featured digital collections (http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html).
100 terabytes is pretty small for a movie company. Sony has done several animated feature films, and modern feature animation has insane data requirements. 100 terabytes isn't even the assets from one movie.
I haven't seen numbers for any particular Sony movies, but numbers for several Dreamworks movies have been published, which can give an idea of just what goes into an animated feature film. "Rise of the Guardians" [1] had 250 TB of assets. "How to Train Your Dragon 2" has over 400 TB.
[1] No, not the owl movie. That was "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole". People often get them confused because of the slight similarity of titles, but they have nothing to do with each other.
I've honestly thought from the very beginning that the hackers had absolutely zero ties to the DPRK. Early on when people were curious on who did this and there was very little communication from the perpetrators I feel that the the only ties to North Korea was the speculation between the release date of the movie and the general speculation of Chinese and N. Korean IP addresses being increasingly prevalent in network attacks in recent years. I think the hackers glommed on to this speculation and are using it to increase the damage by playing on their (and our) fears.
Seriously though, Guardians of Peace is a name that could have only come from someone that's fanatical or someone that's got a great fucking sense of humor.
Doubtful in this scenario that they would take it as far as to threaten physical violence. That would up the anty involving law enforcement if Sony were to call out their bluff.
It's interesting how so many on HN are making such pronouncements, and if they've made them once, their commitment to that line just gets more and more aggressive with each comment.
But seriously, on the matter of motivations -- you're a "black hat" and you decide to screw with Sony. Fun enough, really. If you're something less than mentally incompetent, though, are you then going to threaten literal terrorism? Do you really want to draw the intense attention of very, very well resourced organizations?
If the North Korea angle seems weak, the notion that "random hackers" (the term so commonly used) are doing this for the lulz seems even less likely. There is a line where your probability of remaining unincarcerated drops dramatically.
Somewhere in between are groups who will do things for money -- where the immense risks and operational costs can be made worthwhile. North Korea has the ability to sponsor such groups.
Remarkably absent is any discussion about the precedent this sets for the future. Negotiating with terrorists is never a good idea, even private corporations should understand this.
But I think I know what the calculus here was: the public would have excoriated Sony and Regal (or any other theater owner) if an attack was actually carried out.
We seem to be a nation remarkably devoid of principle, and in that environment, it makes little sense to take a principled stand yourself.
I am very disturbed by the implications this has for the next decade of cyber-warfare. I don't think it was a physical attack the theaters were actually worried about. The unspoken fear is getting hacked as badly as Sony, since they have establish they can pull that off, and the theaters know they can't defend against it. The physical threat gives them an easier 'out'.
I thought the article actually mentioned this angle but I was trying to find the quote and don't see it now.
FWIW I would have never seen this movie but now I will due to all of the hoopla. Though obviously it will be harder to see if it isn't in any theaters, this is still a lot of free publicity for the movie, and I'm sure it will be viewable somehow.
Why are people surprised Hollywood capitulates to fear? It's a generally risk-averse industry. That's why Fast and Furious 7 is coming out soon.
The precedent for this was set 70 years ago when Hollywood execs decided to blacklist purported communists and fellow travelers. Several movies were never distributed because of alleged left-wing sympathies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_of_the_Earth).
As a curious side-note, North Korea's GDP is 12.4b and Sony's market cap is 22.8b.
It's liability, which you might call the corporate version of fear.
Even though the chance that North Koreans would stage a terrorist attack in an American movie theater is slim to none, if something did happen, there would be no end to the lawsuits. As the article mentions, even in the case of the Aurora shooting there was plenty of blame being thrown around in the courtroom. The shooter dressed like the Joker, is the Batman movie to blame? Is the theater to blame? Even in a case like that, where there's clearly one violently insane person to blame, lawsuits happened.
In this case, where there was a clear threat issued, if something happened the theaters would be instantly culpable. It wouldn't even have to be North Koreans, maybe just some sick DPRK sympathizer going nuts and shooting someone.
And like they say, on top of that there might be reduced attendance for other movies as well. If someone's going berzerk in the theater that's playing The Interview, do you really want to be next door watching the Hobbit? Do you even want to go to the mall?
I don't think anyone is seriously worried about an attack. They're worried about the potential legal fallout / lowered profits that could occur in a variety of ways. Controversy isn't great for business, especially during the holidays.
That being said, I think it's spineless. The US Government doesn't respond to threats and blackmail, but corporate America is more than happy to sacrifice anything in order to preserve the bottom line.
I had no intention of going to see The Interview at a theater, but if I can find an independent place playing it on opening night (assuming they'll even try to have it open that night), I'll be tempted to go and support them for standing up to idiocy.
When I see things like this, it makes me wish I had the ability to just "spin up a theater" just to run one and call their bluff. Perhaps this is just naive bluster, but I there are few things that make me stand my ground like threats.
After reading stories about some of Sony's emails I have to wonder if they were looking out for public safety or if they are being blackmailed with some juicy new ones.
'My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time...Now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.'
It appears that Sony pushed really hard for a Christmas release when it would have made more sense to wait until summer when the furor would have most certainly died down.
Back in the day the studios always released their best pictures on Dec 25th. If it was being released on Christmas day it was a picture that they expected would be a great hit and garner multiple Oscar nominations.
I don't intend to be a movie critic, but I've seen the trailer and my question is did Sony really expect this picture to be a blockbuster for them?
>> "It appears that Sony pushed really hard for a Christmas release when it would have made more sense to wait until summer when the furor would have most certainly died down."
It was originally supposed to be released in October 2014.
A movie that Sony expected to be their best movie (44 million to make and 55 million to advertise) turns into a fiasco that cost them tens of millions in lost work, rebuilding IT, hurt brand.
> It appears that Sony pushed really hard for a Christmas release when it would have made more sense to wait until summer when the furor would have most certainly died down.
This happens to pretty much every movie of a couple of actors in my home state in India. Random group makes threats to bomb theaters -> spineless theaters refuse to run the movie -> 2 weeks of negotiations with politicians -> movie comes out. There are two paths after that. Either it runs well because its garnered enough publicity, or it has already been leaked on DVDs. Sickening to see that happening in the US though.
Really confused by all the "it was offensive and in bad taste, so nbd" comments on here. I don't even know where to begin.
Related on the margins, if only that it has to do with the 1st amendment, check out Elonis v. United States[1]. Important 1st amendment case dealing with online threats and reasonable perceptions or expectations of harm.
Well, I was not planning to watch this movie but now plan to visit any movie theater that is screening it and watch it. Hope those chains who show spine make more money this holiday season.
[+] [-] bobsky|11 years ago|reply
Another film set to premier on Dec 25 is Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper" (yea I know, a Christmas classic /s) an easy film to misunderstand and sure to rally those oppose to the US coalition in Iraq/Afghanistan, if threats start about this film from fundamentalists will the studios respond?
*cross post from the dead WSJ discussion thread "Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, Carmike Cinemas and Cineplex Entertainment have all decided against showing the film."
[+] [-] grimtrigger|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blantonl|11 years ago|reply
With demand now through the roof to watch this film, I'd bet we'll see some innovative work by Sony to release this film that satisfies that demand in a legal way.
Or maybe not....
[+] [-] smackfu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdulli|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] downandout|11 years ago|reply
I agree with you, they shouldn't be caving to threats. But they can't possibly believe that this is a credible threat. We don't have a whole lot of North Koreans emigrating here. TMZ has a slightly more likely theory [1]. Rather than genuine fear of attacks from North Korea, they contend that Sony simply wanted to bury the movie without looking weak.
"We're told the execs are actually viewing the latest threat as having a silver lining ... the threat of a 9/11-type attack will make so many theaters pull the flick themselves -- and Sony won't have to do it....Sony execs want the bleeding to stop"
[1] http://www.tmz.com/2014/12/17/theaters-cancelling-the-interv...
[+] [-] mgulaid|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antidamage|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VLM|11 years ago|reply
There is more than one horrible precedent, in that the plot of the movie from what I've read, is the an assassination of a contemporary country leader by specific name. AFAIK that barrier of good taste has never been crossed by Hollywood before. Close, but advocating assassination of a current world leader by name?
Of course, two wrongs not making a right, and all that.
My gut level guess is the whole thing is being orchestrated for PR, lets call it the "snakes on a plane part 2" marketing plan. Hoping for the netflix revenue.
[+] [-] joezydeco|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpmattia|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smackfu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|11 years ago|reply
It's now on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/The-Message-1976-StoryofIslam
[+] [-] danielweber|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d23|11 years ago|reply
I don't want to give anything else away. It's just a shame.
[+] [-] nacho_weekend|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amckenna|11 years ago|reply
Which struck me as very small. So I did some digging and it looks like as of 2009 (almost 6 years ago) the Library of Congress had 74 TB of online data available to the Internet. Additionally the U.S. Library of Congress Web Capture team claims that "as of March 2014, the Library has collected about 525 terabytes of web archive data" and that it adds about 5 terabytes per month. That just includes the web archive team which is one of 8 featured digital collections (http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html).
Here the LOC debunks the 10TB figure directly: http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2011/07/transferrin...
I'm not sure where the author got their figure, but they are way off the mark.
[1] - http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2009/02/how-big-is-the-library-of-c...
[+] [-] tzs|11 years ago|reply
I haven't seen numbers for any particular Sony movies, but numbers for several Dreamworks movies have been published, which can give an idea of just what goes into an animated feature film. "Rise of the Guardians" [1] had 250 TB of assets. "How to Train Your Dragon 2" has over 400 TB.
[1] No, not the owl movie. That was "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole". People often get them confused because of the slight similarity of titles, but they have nothing to do with each other.
[+] [-] nickthemagicman|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uxp|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielweber|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phaus|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shazzdeeds|11 years ago|reply
The threat is most likely real.
[+] [-] personZ|11 years ago|reply
But seriously, on the matter of motivations -- you're a "black hat" and you decide to screw with Sony. Fun enough, really. If you're something less than mentally incompetent, though, are you then going to threaten literal terrorism? Do you really want to draw the intense attention of very, very well resourced organizations?
If the North Korea angle seems weak, the notion that "random hackers" (the term so commonly used) are doing this for the lulz seems even less likely. There is a line where your probability of remaining unincarcerated drops dramatically.
Somewhere in between are groups who will do things for money -- where the immense risks and operational costs can be made worthwhile. North Korea has the ability to sponsor such groups.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] javajosh|11 years ago|reply
But I think I know what the calculus here was: the public would have excoriated Sony and Regal (or any other theater owner) if an attack was actually carried out.
We seem to be a nation remarkably devoid of principle, and in that environment, it makes little sense to take a principled stand yourself.
[+] [-] zaroth|11 years ago|reply
I thought the article actually mentioned this angle but I was trying to find the quote and don't see it now.
[+] [-] steven777400|11 years ago|reply
http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/17/media/the-interview-sony-the...
[+] [-] birken|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maceo|11 years ago|reply
The precedent for this was set 70 years ago when Hollywood execs decided to blacklist purported communists and fellow travelers. Several movies were never distributed because of alleged left-wing sympathies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_of_the_Earth).
As a curious side-note, North Korea's GDP is 12.4b and Sony's market cap is 22.8b.
[+] [-] tallerholler|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sebular|11 years ago|reply
Even though the chance that North Koreans would stage a terrorist attack in an American movie theater is slim to none, if something did happen, there would be no end to the lawsuits. As the article mentions, even in the case of the Aurora shooting there was plenty of blame being thrown around in the courtroom. The shooter dressed like the Joker, is the Batman movie to blame? Is the theater to blame? Even in a case like that, where there's clearly one violently insane person to blame, lawsuits happened.
In this case, where there was a clear threat issued, if something happened the theaters would be instantly culpable. It wouldn't even have to be North Koreans, maybe just some sick DPRK sympathizer going nuts and shooting someone.
And like they say, on top of that there might be reduced attendance for other movies as well. If someone's going berzerk in the theater that's playing The Interview, do you really want to be next door watching the Hobbit? Do you even want to go to the mall?
I don't think anyone is seriously worried about an attack. They're worried about the potential legal fallout / lowered profits that could occur in a variety of ways. Controversy isn't great for business, especially during the holidays.
That being said, I think it's spineless. The US Government doesn't respond to threats and blackmail, but corporate America is more than happy to sacrifice anything in order to preserve the bottom line.
I had no intention of going to see The Interview at a theater, but if I can find an independent place playing it on opening night (assuming they'll even try to have it open that night), I'll be tempted to go and support them for standing up to idiocy.
[+] [-] existencebox|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angkec|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fattybuddha|11 years ago|reply
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/22139/20141214/leaked-sony...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141217/06353329462/attor...
(Removes tin foil hat)
[+] [-] lisper|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomasmarriott|11 years ago|reply
— Chamberlain, 1938
Appeasement, it works.
[+] [-] bruceb|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmason|11 years ago|reply
Back in the day the studios always released their best pictures on Dec 25th. If it was being released on Christmas day it was a picture that they expected would be a great hit and garner multiple Oscar nominations.
I don't intend to be a movie critic, but I've seen the trailer and my question is did Sony really expect this picture to be a blockbuster for them?
[+] [-] k-mcgrady|11 years ago|reply
It was originally supposed to be released in October 2014.
[+] [-] dba7dba|11 years ago|reply
man, man.
[+] [-] aaron695|11 years ago|reply
This is pretty clear victim blaming, this is not clear. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis )
[+] [-] jfoutz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] praneshp|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] encoderer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinalexbrown|11 years ago|reply
That they had a list of theaters showing the film? It seems trivially easy to find however many theaters you want, just by googling.
It just seems confusing.
[+] [-] remarkEon|11 years ago|reply
Related on the margins, if only that it has to do with the 1st amendment, check out Elonis v. United States[1]. Important 1st amendment case dealing with online threats and reasonable perceptions or expectations of harm.
[1] http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/elonis-v-united-s...
[+] [-] tn13|11 years ago|reply