Sony wanted 'The Interview' on iTunes for Christmas, but Apple rejected fast timetable

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 110

    The New York times article referenced in this AI article is sketchy on whether there really was any approach by Sony to Apple, the White House, or indeed anybody at all. It may just be sensationalist gossip.

     

    I understand that Christmas is usually Apple's 3rd biggest bandwidth day of the year, so that might be a concern, but the surge could be quickly outsourced to Akamai or other CDNs. I also believe that China probably would welcome a backhanded jab against North Korea; they want that country gone without "losing face," and a worldwide release of a movie attacking Kim through humor instead of weapons fits.

     

    Instead, I believe the real problem with moving quickly is the need to review dozens of distribution agreements Apple has with studios and theater chains regarding non-compete clauses and release windows, including anti-trust implications if using iTunes could be construed by Justice as an abuse of market power. Then again, when odd things happen in the business world, I usually start by blaming the lawyers :)

     

    edited to remove a duplicate phrase

  • Reply 22 of 110
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    mikesmoke wrote: »
    I think Apple was wise to stay away from the controversy. That is what I think was their strategy is. North Korea and China are tight, Apple and China are tight. It's a stupid, moronic, if not scandalous movie which is not the hill one would die on for freedom of speech.

    The bandwidth argument is also persuasive, as ECats says in post 4.

    But you're right, the movie doesn't deserve "free speech" protection, in the same way that yelling "fire!" In the proverbial movie theater doesn't deserve protection.

    North Korea is a classically fascist society, built on fear and inferiority. You don't tame such a creature by poking sticks through the bars of its cage and laughing at its frenzy. This creature has nuclear weapons and an itchy trigger finger. It's a mindless provocation, this stupid, a-historical movie, built on typical American isolationist ignorance.

    It looks like, won't say it's an airtight case, that Apple has more geopolitical awareness than any of the other players here, including the White House.
  • Reply 23 of 110
    Dudes, bandwidth is free, right? Apple, send that email now "Please turn on additional surge petabyte bandwidth routing for The Interview as of 0300 Cupertino time, uh ... tomorrow? Does tomorrow work for you?"

    I love the White House involvement part of the rumor. Ridiculous!!
  • Reply 24 of 110
    baka-dubbs wrote: »
    Sony is being cowardly.  They keep saying they have no means of distribution, but they have access to the playstation network.   Thats over 90 million devices worldwide, not even including Vita(which really doesn't up the count that much), and I am not including the PSN app, the video unlimited services, etc.  If they wanted this available to people that bad, they could have started with their own services.

    I would love to see some company step up, pay Sony the costof the movie, and release the damn thing for free world wide as a big middle finger to anyone who wanted this movie supressed, but I just don't see that happening. 
    If this were about free speech, Sony would release it for free, or reduced cost. But it's not about free speech, it's about profits. Going to this movie means you are supporting Sony, the company that was too cheap and/or incompetent to have even a modicum of network security. Is that what you want to support?

    And, remember, Apple doesn't allow new app submissions this week because they try to give their employees time off. Sony's timeline would've meant lots of extra work for Apple employees. Again, to support Sony's incompetence? Apple intelligently said No thanks.
  • Reply 25 of 110
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,312member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post





    I am always confused by statements like these. Is our government corporatist when it's not busy being too hard on corporations, shackling them with all kinds of onerous regulations?



    Which is it?

    Always with the "onerous regulations". You are aware that clean water, clean air, a heathy environment and safety in the workplace are regulations, and in reality, there's a lot of toothless regulations that don't actually protect the citizenry, to wit, Wall Street. Also, many of these same regulations create wonderful places to live, work and raise families.

     

    Many regulations are promulgated to answer a particular issue, i.e., unlocked fire doors in commercial establishments due to deaths of people that couldn't escape fire. Or how about regulations against dumping toxins into water supplies; seems like a no brainer.

     

    Ayn Rand fan I take it.

  • Reply 26 of 110
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,312member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Flaneur View Post





    The bandwidth argument is also persuasive, as ECats says in post 4.



    But you're right, the movie doesn't deserve "free speech" protection, in the same way that yelling "fire!" In the proverbial movie theater doesn't deserve protection.



    North Korea is a classically fascist society, built on fear and inferiority. You don't tame such a creature by poking sticks through the bars of its cage and laughing at its frenzy. This creature has nuclear weapons and an itchy trigger finger. It's a mindless provocation, this stupid, a-historical movie, built on typical American isolationist ignorance.



    It looks like, won't say it's an airtight case, that Apple has more geopolitical awareness than any of the other players here, including the White House.

    North Korea gets its "power" from having some 14 thousand artillery pieces trained on South Korea, not nuclear weapons, of which they would not be able to launch at will anyway. It's also a showcase for a country that hasn't enough energy to produce fertilizer needed to get higher crop yields, and the primary reason that the people are malnourished.

  • Reply 27 of 110
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    quadra 610 wrote: »
    At this point it doesn't really matter. Another shitty movie that is only interesting due to the news generated around it. Hollywood is truly bankrupt creatively.

    There's nothing to recommend an assassination movie around the holidays in the first place.

    And quite frankly, in the grand perspective, what Sony did doesn't matter. They behaved with what they thought was corporate responsibility. It isn't their job to be courageous in this regard. Folks are just a little but ass-hurt that they were made to feel like their country (USA) came in behind 1st place in the imaginary game of nationalist one-upmanship they love to play. It's juvenile, and it's something to be gotten over in the span of the ten minutes it takes you to drink your tasty Starbucks beverage.

    Oh no! The terrorists have won! *slurp slurp*

    You win, too, cowboy. You were spared the agony of Seth Rogen flick.

    Well said, and a better subject of satire. Two loser screenwriters at a Starbucks in Studio City finally get over their poseur envy and start swapping ideas . . . .
  • Reply 28 of 110
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by bikertwin View Post





    If this were about free speech, Sony would release it for free, or reduced cost. But it's not about free speech, it's about profits. Going to this movie means you are supporting Sony, the company that was too cheap and/or incompetent to have even a modicum of network security. Is that what you want to support?



    And, remember, Apple doesn't allow new app submissions this week because they try to give their employees time off. Sony's timeline would've meant lots of extra work for Apple employees. Again, to support Sony's incompetence? Apple intelligently said No thanks.

     

    Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear in my original post, but I am trying to say I don't believe any of the BS when it comes to Sony.   They have publicly said they can't find anyone to release their movie, when they have their own means of releasing it to a wide audience that they have conveniently ignored.   They would have probably just taken a loss if it wasn't for the public backlash at the movie being pulled.  I don't support Sony in this, and I think they have committed a series of boneheaded moves and tried to place blame on anyone but themselves.   I don't blame Apple for not rushing to get this ready for release on an extremely shortened timespan during the holidays.

  • Reply 29 of 110
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    tmay wrote: »
    North Korea gets its "power" from having some 14 thousand artillery pieces trained on South Korea, not nuclear weapons, of which they would not be able to launch at will anyway. It's also a showcase for a country that hasn't enough energy to produce fertilizer needed to get higher crop yields, and the primary reason that the people are malnourished.

    Yes, and I would be interested to know how some intelligent South Koreans are viewing this fiasco.
  • Reply 30 of 110
    tmay wrote: »
    Always with the "onerous regulations". You are aware that clean water, clean air, a heathy environment and safety in the workplace are regulations, and in reality, there's a lot of toothless regulations that don't actually protect the citizenry, to wit, Wall Street. Also, many of these same regulations create wonderful places to live, work and raise families.

    Many regulations are promulgated to answer a particular issue, i.e., unlocked fire doors in commercial establishments due to deaths of people that couldn't escape fire. Or how about regulations against dumping toxins into water supplies; seems like a no brainer.

    Ayn Rand fan I take it.

    Read Ayn Rand when I was a teenager, and thought it was ok. (You've not read her, I take it).

    I can see that you're sarcasm-challenged, on top of it.
  • Reply 31 of 110
    I am always confused by statements like these. Is our government corporatist when it's not busy being too hard on corporations, shackling them with all kinds of onerous regulations?

    Which is it?

    Corporatism does not refer to every single business. Are you completely unaware of the historical and present day ties with Goldman Sachs, General Electric, Boeing, etc., etc., etc.?
  • Reply 32 of 110

    Corporatism does not refer to every single business. Are you completely unaware of the historical and present day ties with Goldman Sachs, General Electric, Boeing, etc., etc., etc.?

    You mean the companies that gave us currency swaps as hedging tools, central power stations and light bulbs, and 747s?

    Sure I am aware. Are you?
  • Reply 33 of 110
    "Surprised they couldn't make his happen."

    The reason it couldn't happen is because most Apple employees have the week of Christmas off.
  • Reply 34 of 110
    It looks like there will be options.

    [LIST][*] http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/24/7423421/sony-the-interview-online-
    [/LIST]
  • Reply 35 of 110
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member

    LOL, the Associated Press is reporting that YouTube will stream this movie on Thursday.

     

    I wonder how many times they will cut for a commercial break?

     

    :D 

  • Reply 36 of 110
    boredumbboredumb Posts: 1,418member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Frac View Post

     
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by boredumb View Post

    Please submit a list of the hills not worth dying for...

    (I promise not to censor it)




    Child pornography.

    State executions.

    Any hill labelled 'Not worth going there' and likely to induce teeth sucking.

    Any morally conjectural hill where 'yours' is the only head in view.

    Ludicrous - not even apples and oranges,

    but pointless to explain if you don't already see that.

  • Reply 37 of 110

    I don't get it. As others have commented, there is more to this than meets the eye. Making a movie available on iTunes can't take more than a few clicks. Fairly, there has to be a license deal to include it, and if Tim wanted something done, surely his lawyers could print the document for him and Sony.

     

    So...it has to be concerns on bandwidth (that I have a hard time understanding, but will defer to others that seem to think this would be an issue. How much load can a crappy movie be?) or that AAPL is concerned about security (and I don't really want to think too hard about that) or that AAPL fears a terrorist action IRL, and would require Sony to provide indemnity for that. Eww.

  • Reply 38 of 110
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Flaneur View Post



    But you're right, the movie doesn't deserve "free speech" protection, in the same way that yelling "fire!" In the proverbial movie theater doesn't deserve protection.

     

    jesus i hope you aren't an american. satire of course does deserve free speech protection in our nation.

     

    and no, it's not like yelling "fire!" since in that classic litmus test we see the speech actively hurting people as they stamped. there is no such equivalency in a dumb comedy about killing an overseas dictator.

  • Reply 39 of 110

    On a broader topic, does anyone else have trouble believing that N Korea -- a podunk, IT-challenged country with perhaps no more than a 1,000 IP addresses -- was able to do something like this?

     

    And, if it was indeed the case that they were able to pull off something of this magnitude, that we're really doomed in more ways than we could possibly imagine?

  • Reply 40 of 110
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post





    I am always confused by statements like these. Is our government corporatist when it's not busy being too hard on corporations, shackling them with all kinds of onerous regulations?



    Which is it?

    "Corporatism," according to political scientists, is a political arrangement that exists mainly in Western Europe wherein the government, large corporations, and large unions govern the country in a triumvirate, or more like a "common council." So, the actions of the government in trying to broker the deal could be viewed as "corporatist" because it is government working closely with large corporations to try to help out a large corporation (Sony).   That is what the original poster might have meant. I do not wish to get into an exchange over this. 

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