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Author
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Topic: Sony Hack Hits Home
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-27-2014 12:19 AM
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
I think it is more complicated than just wanting to go out. I just think the movie is the most important thing first.
How good do you think the movies will be if/when they're made solely for TV?
***
I couldn't immediately make a different post after this one, so I'm appending this news story to this edited post:
quote: Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg
Web Economics May Not Add Up for Sony’s ‘The Interview’
The economics of pay-per-view suggest Sony Pictures will have a hard time generating enough revenue to recoup the estimated $80 million it has spent so far making and marketing “The Interview.”
The movie opened in 331 theaters on Christmas day, taking in more than $1 million in ticket sales, according to Rentrak Corp. It also topped the charts of two online marketplaces, Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox video store and YouTube’s movie store.
A family of five could watch “The Interview” at home for the $5.99 online rental price at YouTube Movies, compared with the $50 or more they would pay in a theater. The Seth Rogen film, a fictional comedy about a plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, prompted a cyber-attack that the FBI linked to that country’s government and led Sony to shelve the release.
“There’s a reason why the industry has its typical release pattern, with the theatrical first,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak Corp.
One potential benefit is that studios keep a larger share of revenue from typical video-on-demand deals, as much as 70 percent, according to Rich Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG LLC. The split with cinema owners is about 50-50. Sony declined to comment on possible terms.
Screenings in 300 theaters won’t add a lot compared with what the studio planned previously. It represents fraction of the 3,000 or more locations that typically constitute what the industry calls a wide release for a film such as “The Interview.”
Digital distribution of entertainment has been growing. Online sales of films and TV shows increased 47 percent last year to $1.2 billion, while rentals rose 5 percent to $2 billion, according to the Los Angeles-based Digital Entertainment Group, a studio-led consortium.
Because of the controversy and weeks of international media coverage, “The Interview” could see much more traffic online than is typical for films that are released simultaneously on the Internet and in theaters.
Without knowing how many households will pay to see the film online or what the split is with the distributors, it’s difficult to estimate how much Sony Corp. (6758)’s entertainment division will recoup from “The Interview,” according to Eric Wold, an analyst at B. Riley & Co. in San Francisco.
“I don’t think they end up getting back all of their costs,” Wold said.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-27-2014 02:15 AM
Terry, you are concentrating on a single four-digit number that has no meaning, whatsoever. I know steaks. I ate steaks and breathed charcoal fumes for the first, almost twenty years of my life.
You put a freakin' steak on the grill and you cook it. PERIOD!
Everything else is just pure, Hollywood, marketing fantasy!
Do you want to know why restaurants use sizzle platters?
It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the sound and sight of sizzling steak. It's a good side effect but it's not the real reason.
Hot, sizzling steak gives off hot vapor that the customer smells, long before the food ever gets to his mouth. The scent and sensation of hot, sizzling steak vapor increases the customer's sense of satisfaction something like ten times over the same steak served on a cold plate.
The sense of smell is much more directly connected to a person's emotional response than sight or hearing.
Eating in a restaurant is all about the emotional response.
You can buy a sizzle platter on-line for less than $10.
Ruth's Chris sells an excellent product but there is absolutely nothing magic about what they do. The steak is only half the product. The rest is all presentation and serving the customer's needs.
I can take you to a meat market where you can pick out your own cow and you can watch while they slaughter it for you.
I can buy you a fancy grill-broiler combination cooker if you want but I'd rather cook on a Weber grill using real, hardwood charcoal. NOT briquettes! Trust me. There is a difference!
I can give you sizzle platters. I can give you all of the technical know-how. To be honest, it's bloody easy. There are no secrets, there.
You can have the EXACT, same steak cooked in my back yard with my lifetime expertise or you can go to Ruth's Chris and pay the premium.
The magic that Ruth's Chris has is only because they cook the steak, to perfection, for you. They serve it on a sizzling platter. The waiter brings it to you and cleans up afterward. They bring you wine and they'll even pour it for you. If you don't know what kind of wine to drink, they have a sommelier who will pick something for you. You don't even have to know crap about wine. That's what a sommelier gets paid for.
Going to a restaurant is all about serving the emotional needs of the customer. It doesn't matte HOW you do it. It only matters that you pay attention to what the customer wants.
If the customer wants to eat barbecued pork on a wooden picnic table, I can tell them where to get it.
If the customer wants to eat that same meal in a fine dining restaurant where the waiters all wear tuxedos, I can tell them where to get that, too.
Movies are no different. You can watch a movie in a googolplex or you can watch the same movie in a movie palace. It will be the exact same product but the emotional response of the customer will be different.
It is the theater's job to serve the customer's emotional need.
That is what they are REALLY paying their money for.
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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 12-27-2014 08:16 AM
On the first day that the INTERVIEW was available from the Kernel website, which was delivering the movie, the URL for the picture was not unique and could be shared with others. Also, it was possible to just right-click the movie and save the file in an unprotected format.
This was reported by THE VERGE website:
quote:
It's been an interesting day for Kernel, the site powering Sony's digital rentals of The Interview in the US. Not only did it briefly buckle under the pressure of people hammering its site to watch the movie, but apparently it didn't do a great job in securing copies of the film, either. Those who spent $5.99 to watch a 48-hour rental of The Interview on their browser could simply share the URL of the film with anyone else. Worse yet, anyone who had access to the link was able to save an unprotected copy locally through a super obvious loophole, something The Verge was able to confirm from different browsers and locations.
Kernel did not respond to a request for comment, but tweeted that it was "working on a fix as we speak," after the issue was pointed out.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-27-2014 04:28 PM
I can watch movies like Death Proof where three chicks beat the living snot out of Kurt Russel... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXowTxmhQ5w
That kind of violence is "funny" (quotes intended) in an "OMFG" kind of way. Tarantino does that kind of thing well.
Then, there is that "Three Stooges" kind of thing or the "Cartoon" violence where the coyote gets blown to smithereens.
Then there is that place, in between the extremes where one has to tread really, really carefully. If it's not JUST RIGHT, it ceases to be funny and can even become offensive.
One thing that is important in comedy is that when you make fun of something, you MUST understand the serious concept of the thing you make fun of before you go forward.
It's like Mel Brooks with the "Up yours N-word" joke.
If Mel Brooks didn't understand the serious nature of those words and didn't use them in just the right way, not only would the line have failed, it could have ruined the whole movie.
(Richard Pryor being on the writing team doesn't hurt, either.)
Groucho Marx sums it up best:
quote:
...An amateur thinks it's really funny if you dress a man up as an old lady, put him in a wheelchair, and give the wheelchair a push that sends it spinning down a slope towards a stone wall. For a pro, it's got to be a real old lady.
— Groucho Marx
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 12-27-2014 06:49 PM
We had to jump trough all kinds of hoops to watch it over here in Europe, halfway legally for six bucks via YouTube. We were a group of five. Those economics will never work out...
quote:
It's been an interesting day for Kernel, the site powering Sony's digital rentals of The Interview in the US. Not only did it briefly buckle under the pressure of people hammering its site to watch the movie, but apparently it didn't do a great job in securing copies of the film, either. Those who spent $5.99 to watch a 48-hour rental of The Interview on their browser could simply share the URL of the film with anyone else. Worse yet, anyone who had access to the link was able to save an unprotected copy locally through a super obvious loophole, something The Verge was able to confirm from different browsers and locations.
Sorry, but isn't this the absolute most basic of all basic things to get right if you offer such a service? About ten years ago, when this whole streaming thing was just starting to become achievable via the Internet and I needed to make it work for some early VOD services, those kind of things were the very first things on my list.
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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 12-28-2014 11:19 AM
Sony About to Get Sued For Pirating Music in The Interview
quote:
As the controversy surrounding the The Interview continues, a singer is claiming that after failing to reach terms with Sony, the company put her music in the movie anyway. After receiving not a penny from the movie giant, Yoon Mi Rae is now set to sue. Meanwhile, 1.5 million pirates have downloaded the comedy.
The way things are panning out, the Sony movie The Interview is on course to become one of the most controversial movies of all time.
The comedy, which depicts the violent death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, made headlines worldwide when the so-called Guardians of Peace hacking group threatened Sony if it was released. Facing what amounted to a “terrorist” threat, theaters all around the U.S. backed away from showing The Interview in the week leading up to Christmas.
After pulling the movie completely, Sony had a change of heart and on Christmas Eve released the music online via YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Live. Predictably the movie was quickly gobbled up by pirates, with the latest figures suggesting that in just two days the movie has been downloaded 1.5 million times.
But while Sony deals with rampant piracy issues at one end, it’s now facing copyright infringement allegations of its own. According to new claims, Sony used copyrighted music in The Interview without permission and without compensating an artist.
Yoon Mi-rae (real name Natasha Shanta Reid) is a US-born hip hop and R&B singer who currently releases music on the Feel Ghood Music label. In January 2013 as part of MFBTY (My Fans Better Than Yours), the 33-year-old hit the number 1 spot in the Korean Music Charts and in September reached the same heights on Billboard’s Kpop Hot 100 list with her song ‘Touch Love’.
But while these recognitions were achieved by fans buying her music, she’s now in the spotlight for not getting paid for her work. It appears that Yoon Mi-rae was in negotiations with Sony to have her track ‘Pay Day’ appear in The Interview. Even though no agreement was reached, Sony used the music anyway.
“There were initial discussions for using ‘Pay Day‘ in the movie, but at some point, the discussions ceased and we assumed that it would not follow through,” Feel Ghood Music says.
“However, after the movie was released, we learned that the track had been used without permission, legal procedure, or contracts.”
Sony, who are already facing a world of pain following the hacking and near destruction of their IT systems in recent weeks, will now face a copyright infringement lawsuit over the unauthorized use of the ironically named ‘Pay Day’.
“We will be taking legal action against Sony Pictures as well as DFSB, the agency that had been carrying out the discussion regarding the use of the track,” the label says.
It seems unlikely that this lawsuit will result in a messy legal battle. The huge publicity the movie has enjoyed in the past few weeks will virtually guarantee decent sales for Sony, even without lucrative box office revenues. Yoon Mi-rae should not only be able to secure a piece of that but also raise her profile in a way that would not have been possible had Sony paid her in the first instance.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-28-2014 12:40 PM
quote: Article posted by Frank
The way things are panning out, the Sony movie The Interview is on course to become one of the most controversial movies of all time.
If your concept of movie history begins with Pulp Fiction, maybe. But otherwise, that's a ridiculous statement. The Birth of a Nation, Jew Suss, Mission to Moscow, Straw Dogs, umpteen "video nasties" from the 1980s, etc. etc. etc.? In the history of movie controversy, this one will be lucky to make a footnote. It will probably make for a serious chapter in a history of IT security failures, though.
As for the copyright issue, it sounds like a simple failure of communication between two departments at Sony. The haggling between the studio and the record company stalled, the production unit assumed that it would eventually be ironed out and went ahead and used the audio, and no-one caught this loose end in the final stages of post-production. As someone who has worked in an archive and licensed clips to filmmakers, I feel confident in noting that this sort of thing happens all the time, albeit usually with much more obscure and low profile content than this.
Assuming Sony don't argue over paying her the going rate for this sort of usage (which I'm guessing is a percentage of the gross for something this high profile), the only possible lawsuit would be if she did not want the music used at all, for artistic/ethical reasons, and quite simply denied permission. In that scenario, then unless Sony could come up with a fair use defense (very unlikely, given that this is a commercial entertainment movie, pure and simple), they could be in trouble. They'll be some further haggling over what the going rate actually is, but that'll be about it.
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