SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
WikiLeaks has published "The Sony Archives," a searchable database containing 30,287 documents and 173,132 emails leaked from Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE). The WikiLeaks press release portrays the archive as newsworthy and in the public interest:
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange said: "This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation. It is newsworthy and at the centre of a geo-political conflict. It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there."
Sony is a member of the MPAA and a strong lobbyist on issues around internet policy, piracy, trade agreements and copyright issues. The emails show the back and forth on lobbying and political efforts, not only with the MPAA but with politicians directly. In November 2013 WikiLeaks published a secret draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) IP Chapter. The Sony Archives show SPE's internal reactions, including discussing the impact with Michael Froman, the US Trade Representative. It also references the case against Megaupload and the extradition of its founder Kim DotCom from New Zealand as part of SPE's war on piracy.
The connections and alignments between Sony Pictures Entertainment and the US Democratic Party are detailed through the archives, including SPE's CEO Lynton attending dinner with President Obama at Martha's Vineyard and Sony employees being part of fundraising dinners for the Democratic Party. There are emails setting up a collective within the corporation to get around the 5,000 USD limit on corporate campaign donations to give 50,000 USD to get the Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo elected as "Thanks to Governor Cuomo, we have a great production incentive environment in NY and a strong piracy advocate that’s actually done more than talk about our problems."
Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton is on the board of trustees of RAND Corporation, an organisation specialising in research and development for the United States military and intelligence sector. The Sony Archives show the flow of contacts and information between these two major US industries, whether it is RAND wanting to invite George Clooney and Kevin Spacey to events, or Lynton offering contact to Valerie Jarrett (a close advisor to Obama) or RAND desiring a partnership with IMAX for digital archiving. With this close tie to the military-industrial complex it is no surprise that Sony reached out to RAND for advice regarding its North Korea film The Interview. RAND provided an analyst specialised in North Korea and suggested Sony reach out to the State Department and the NSA regarding North Korea's complaints about the upcoming film. The Sony documents also show Sony being in possession of a brochure for an NSA-evaluated online cloud security set-up called INTEGRITY.
Additional coverage at BBC and LA Times. Sony has condemned the document dump:
"The attackers used the dissemination of stolen information to try to harm SPE and its employees, and now WikiLeaks regrettably is assisting them in that effort," said a Sony Pictures spokesperson in a statement. "We vehemently disagree with WikiLeaks' assertion that this material belongs in the public domain and will continue to fight for the safety, security, and privacy of our company and its more than 6,000 employees."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Tork on Friday April 17 2015, @11:50PM
Have you ever considered that the reason people "might not pay for anyway" is because they no longer have to pay for it?
That is exactly what the industries assumed would happen and it has yet to play out. Instead, in most cases, those industries grew. The rise of the internet, for example, didn't kill Hollywood. Which is really funny considering that they didn't originally want you to be able to own a VCR for fear of people not paying for films anymore.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Saturday April 18 2015, @12:01PM
While some industries have grown, and certainly major Hollywood blockbusters are raking in cash, niche film and music industries have undeniably taken a hit. Lots of bands say album sales are down, and the labels that I follow – and where I used to spend into the hundreds every month – note that sales have seriously slumped after pirate sites made it a project to supply every release new and old from those labels in FLAC with high-resolution scanned booklets. Torrenting doesn't share all or even more of the blame though, as a large and increasing number of people are now just doing their music listening from YouTube instead of paying physical releases.
Acknowledging these developments isn't a call for draconian antipiracy measures. Bands are simply accepting that the genie is out of the bottle and that they will have to tour and sell merchandise more. Criterion has always had a tradition of subsidizing low-selling arthouse titles by releasing the occasional big-name title that will sell well even in spite of piracy. The European jazz and avant-garde classical music that I listen to is already supported mainly through state arts funding, and recording sales were never the bulk of the business anyway.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:22PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:56PM
Albums versus individual sales doesn't hold for films, and yet Criterion and Artificial Eye have seen declining sales after most of their films became readily torrentable. With contemporary classical music, people generally want the whole work instead of just an individual movement, and interest in full albums persists for boutique jazz like ECM. So, putting all of these DVDs and CDs on torrent communities could not have been motivated by the desire for individual tracks as opposed to full albums.
And I daresay for most people who consume their media pirated -- and this is definitely my own experience -- doing so is not based on a feeling of injustice, that one is forced to torrent because the material is not made available on a track-by-track basis as one wants. Rather, it's simply nice to not pay anything at all, which allows one to consume much more than one might otherwise have been able to with one's means. And with the money saved from not paying for music/books/films, one has more money to spend on other leisure activities.