sony cowes to N. Korean madman's demand to can "interview"

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do you think sony did the right thing by canning the release of the "interview" movie, or in your opinion was their corporate behavior craven?

This incident shows the power of cyber crime. It's a dangerous precedent. Regardless of the merit of the film, Sony's action was decided by fear. Score 1 for North Korea.

Perhaps they've been pressured because the Japanese government doesn't want to escalate relations with North Korea even more?

I'm sure Sony and the theaters are just afraid of the lawsuits if something happened.

Though the adage, "people that make threats, don't do a thing", applies here.

But if some idiot attacked a theater or something, how would Sony be responsible? Wouldn't they go after the person who actually commited the crime? Seems to me that a movie like this is covered under free speech.

Civil lawsuits. It doesn't require as much stringent doubt as criminal ones.

If you went, there's a known threat, and something happens related to said threat, then you are now wealthy (or your family is, as you're dead). The business will be blamed for not upholding their "duty of care" for you by not closing it down.

It's wrong, but that's how civil lawsuits go.

My understanding is that the theaters decided not to screen it, and so there wasn't much point in Sony releasing it.

Sony may be more worried about more "secrets" being revealed by the hackers.

Good point, furthermore I would surmise from a geek industry standpoint that Sony's IT security contractors conscientiously objected out of deference towards the families of the N.K. attackers. Even if this was in fact the work of a Chinese for-profit collective, failure still would've been seen as rationale for severe upheaval in Pyongyang.

Last edited by cberg on 18 Dec 2014, 1:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

CIA could just purchase the movie secretely and release it for free on the web under an anonymous hacker group pseudonym and stick it to the little fat guy.

Anons would see through that immediately via process of elimination on IRC and Pyongyang's response would be exactly the same as if Sony were to release it. The CIA is devious but they don't like to get anyone hurt whom they can't gather information on.

I think it's a huge mistake to back down to, and placate a totalitarian regime.

I would bet good money, that his is just the tip of the iceberg, there will be more such attacks. many more, the floodgates are open.

If they make it so you can't sue someone for pretty much no reason and win a ton of money from it, these things will always work unless someone is willing to lose money for their convictions.

Most people sell out.

Did North Korea do similar threats when Team America was released? If they did, then this is pure cowardice from Sony (I even consider them cowards if it didn't happen before)

North Korea is a country full of batshit crazy people, they've threatened countries before for more serious things (like military training drills near the DMZ), so I don't get why they would pull the movie over this threat.

That had actually been Kim Jung Un's old man made fun of in that movie. I suspect he didn't even know they were parodying him with a puppet.