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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: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @04:00PM
As a software developer I've always considered piracy free marketing penetration by people who mostly would not pay for it in the first place, and then those who find they like it and then buy.
As a music listener I used to like being able to try out different music which when I found someone I likes I would buy.
When I run into a movie I really like I buy it as well.
I found myself not buying music I cannot listen to. Those who cannot afford the product will never buy it. But it they like it they will tell others and one day they might afford it. I found this to be true for all mediums.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday April 17 2015, @05:57PM
A lawyer from each of the MPAA and the RIAA has been dispatched to slap you with a $100 million lawsuit for actively encouraging theft of their property.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday April 17 2015, @06:23PM
After a review of the Wikileaks Sony file, detailing the level of collaboration with RAND Corp and the US Executive Branch plus associated agencies, I believe that in addition to the lawsuits, the original poster is now also due for an extraordinary rendition, as a giver of material support for terrorism.
Where "material" means "figurative and insubstantial" and "terrorism" means "counterproductive to market domination".
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday April 17 2015, @06:24PM
Shareware everything... ;-)
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Tork on Friday April 17 2015, @07:43PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday April 17 2015, @07:46PM
...
A few years ago I wrote some software that was sold on-line. My business partner really wanted me to go heavy-handed on the copy restriction, he was worried that one little leak would sink the project. I told him that as somebody who purchases software I cannot *stand* anything more complicated than a serial number and that one little glitch with that would sour me for life. Eventually we landed on a compromise. We had a pretty good idea that version 2 would be a major upgrade from version 1, so he let me have my way with the copy protection with version 1. If it was pirated to death we'd increase the restriction for version 2 a few months later.
We released the product with the unlock code simply being a user-name and serial #. That's it. No calling home, no DRM, nothing stopping you from giving the code to a buddy. The result? About mid-way through the life of both versions of the product a warez version did turn up. The result to our sales? Let's just say if you look at a chart of our sales you wouldn't be able to find when the pirated version was released. It turns out people were happy to pay for a product they liked.
A few years later I had a bad experience with another bit of software. I paid $400 for a specialized tool in my field. It was simple, functional, gave good results, and was waaaay cheaper than the $10k the next competing product wanted. I used it for a project and then put it down. Six months later another project came along and I went to restart the software and.. blurp... it wanted a new unlock code. I emailed the company on a Friday and on TUESDAY I got the new code! ARG. It turns out that the software tried to identify my computer via its hardware configuration. Somewhere between project 1 and project 2 I had doubled my RAM and that was enough to make the software go "I on a different machine! Waaah!" The author of that software had a blog where he went on a rant to the tune of "No, you don't need a demo version. No you don't need a trial version. Just pay up." That made me *very* mad. Since I cannot afford the 10K software and since I cannot rely on this software to work when I need it to I just ended up dropping that service for my clients. What's amusing is that if I had gotten a cracked copy of the software, I could have trained myself to use it (i.e. addict myself to it) *and* I would have insulated myself from unlock code bullshit. I would have paid for it eventually, either when a new version came along or at the very least to keep myself legit while earning money from it.
I'm sorry for the rant, but I thought some of you might be interested to hear from an actual content producer who doesn't fear the piracy boogieman. Piracy has never destroyed a major product, but every time you prevent a game from loading or a movie from playing you risk losing a customer. Fun = money.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday April 17 2015, @10:02PM
Nowadays if I have to use something like that, I'll normally encapsulate it in a VM. It's always the same machine, even if I clone/move it.
I suppose that's probably possible to detect, but I haven't seen anyone bother so far.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday April 17 2015, @10:39PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @10:51PM
My pirated copy of vmware workstation supports 3d.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday April 17 2015, @10:57PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @12:11AM
Easy to find out, 30-day free trial.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday April 18 2015, @12:33AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @01:04PM
VMWare Workstation, and even the completely Free VM Player (which also Makes VMs - no trial needed), have had full support for DX9 since VM Workstation 7 and also supports OpenGL. It was improved even more in version 9. Please just download the newest Free version of VMPlayer and use it to make a VM and give it a test.
I can play modern 3D intensive video games in the free VMPlayer just fine. I was surprised to even be able to install and run Steam in it and install and run games from it. Works great!! The time has finally come my friend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @01:06PM
Of course install Windows into the VM. ;)
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:18PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @10:49PM
It is possible to detect. There is malware out there that will not launch if it detects it is in a VM.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @05:42AM
> There is malware out there that will not launch if it detects it is in a VM.
Sounds like a good reason to run everything in a VM.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Friday April 17 2015, @11:35PM
Microsoft uses a license asfaik that explicitly forbid usage in a virtual environment. So it can get your company in legal hot waters in a BSA raid or whatever crap they try.
(guess they want to squeeze out the OS competition and make the Nazi backdoors to work)
Otoh.. it's way easier to "alter the bits on the fly" such that there's no VM to be found..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @01:09PM
NO! You absolutely CAN legally use Windows in a VM, provided you have paid for that copy of it. Microsoft even sells VM software for that purpose. They would LOVE for you to fill up your system with several paid for copies of windows vs just one copy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by CRCulver on Friday April 17 2015, @09:24PM
Have you ever considered that the reason people "might not pay for anyway" is because they no longer have to pay for it? I'm a huge collector of music and films, and I've got from paying hundreds of euro a month for CDs and DVDs/Blurays to just occasionally paying for a product, and mainly just torrenting. On forums for discussing these arts, I've seen many other people repeat the same. I don't feel so bad about this because the particular music and films I enjoy are often made with significant amounts of funding from state arts ministries, so the drop in (already low) sales on the physical release may not be as serious as it is in the popular music or Hollywood movie market, but still labels and distributors are taking a hit from privacy. While some of the audience might have never paid for it anyway, lots of once paying customers are no longer paying.
(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.