The Interview: Sony finds an unlikely distributor in BitTorrent, considering releasing it for free

[Himanshu Arora]

Following Sony Picture’s decision to cancel the Christmas release of upcoming film "The Interview," and the revelation that no major video on demand distributor is willing to distribute the movie as stated by the company's CEO, Michael Lynton, BitTorrent has offered to help.

According to VentureBeat, the file-sharing company is trying to score a win saying that its BitTorrent Bundle service is the “very best way” for the studio to ensure that a wide audience can view the film safely.

"There have been calls for Sony to release the film online. And many have contacted us asking: Would they be able to release the movie using BitTorrent?" the company said in a statement. "Though we normally would not offer commentary during such a trying time for another company, the answer is yes." BitTorrent's Bundle allows content creators to release their content directly to consumers for a fee.

During the weekend, Sony Pictures stated it still had plans to release the film and was "actively surveying" alternatives to release the movie. Reportedly Netflix nor Amazon have expressed interested in picking up online distribution of the movie, so It's been rumored an alternative would be a free release on Crackle, the streaming service owned by Sony. 

Meanwhile, Brazilian author Paulo Coelho also made an offer to purchase the film’s rights. Though admittedly offering a mere 0.01% of the film's cost in exchange, the purpose was adding to the conversation that they film should be released with no giving in to hackers or terrorists' demands.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/59218-interview-sony-finds-unlikely-distributor-bittorrent-considering-releasing.html

 

[Burty117]

As soon as I can watch this film I'm going to, even if it's crap, Just to see what all the fuss is about...

 

[RustyTech]

I saw the preview and it's a comedy; I think a good one at that. The fuss is that the CIA is trying to have the two "take out" the N.Korean leader.

 

[slamscaper]

It's ridiculous that Netflix and Amazon are scared to touch it. The people running these companies should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[stewi0001]

It's ridiculous that Netflix and Amazon are scared to touch it. The people running these companies should be ashamed of themselves.

I don't think they are scared, I think it's more like we have more important things to take care of and we don't need add a hacker to the list.

 

[Guest]

Great, now sony going over the torrents?

I thought movie companies and torrents didn't match?

 

[Nima304]

It's ridiculous that Netflix and Amazon are scared to touch it. The people running these companies should be ashamed of themselves.

I don't think they are scared, I think it's more like we have more important things to take care of and we don't need add a hacker to the list.

That's the definition of being scared. If they had good security, they wouldn't be worried about hackers trying to break into their systems.

 

[RustyTech]

That's the definition of being scared. If they had good security, they wouldn't be worried about hackers trying to break into their systems.

This made me LOL Someone who actually reads a tech site is saying this.
But alas, I'll bite: If someone is trying to hack you - nothing will stop them. They can DDoS and cripple the connection which will affect EVERY SINGLE subscriber.

 

[Guest]

Circus and bread.

 

[Guest]

There are thousends Sony movie on bittorrent, one more or less, so...

 

[oldikes]

As soon as I can watch this film I'm going to, even if it's crap, Just to see what all the fuss is about...

I think alot of people are going to have this mentality and be really disappointed at how stupid the movie is going to be. It's just some stupid silly comedy not some work of art. xP the only reason anyone cares about the movie now is because someone cared enough to hack a company in order to halt distribution of it.

 

[yRaz]

Sony finds an unlikely distributor in BitTorrent

It was going to end up on torrent sites regardless

 

[Ranger12]

Sony will never release to Bittorent. That would only legitimize torrenting and that's the last thing Sony wants but it would be a good play for Bittorent.

 

[OneSpeed]

Internic should just shut down the TCP/IP traffic that transit out of North Korea (or make them go through China).

 

[Evernessince]

That's the definition of being scared. If they had good security, they wouldn't be worried about hackers trying to break into their systems.

This made me LOL Someone who actually reads a tech site is saying this.
But alas, I'll bite: If someone is trying to hack you - nothing will stop them. They can DDoS and cripple the connection which will affect EVERY SINGLE subscriber.

You do know any company worth it's salt will have have net-end routers that are made to deflect DDoS attack and outright ban IP ranges based on location if an attack is detected. Amzon is pinged all the time.

 

[Evernessince]

Sony will never release to Bittorent. That would only legitimize torrenting and that's the last thing Sony wants but it would be a good play for Bittorent.

Companies release their products all the time on bit torrent. One more isn't going to change the world's view on it.

Sony does have a bad history with DRM and torrents though.

 

[Nima304]

That's the definition of being scared. If they had good security, they wouldn't be worried about hackers trying to break into their systems.

This made me LOL Someone who actually reads a tech site is saying this.
But alas, I'll bite: If someone is trying to hack you - nothing will stop them. They can DDoS and cripple the connection which will affect EVERY SINGLE subscriber.

I don't think you're up to date on DDoS prevention technology. Services like CloudFlare put a ton of firewalls between you and the outside world (easy to achieve with ACLs and such), so any form of flood-based DDoS attacks are entirely mitigated. If it were so easy to take down websites with DDoS, we'd see a lot more outages of major websites like Google, Yahoo, PayPal, and the like.

 

[Guest]

With all the hype this film is getting I'm surprised that somebody isn't picking it up. Once the hype dies down its just going to maybe break even like most comedies do. I think Sony should rush it to DVD while people are still talking about it that way they can profit off of it and people can still see it.

 

[OneSpeed]

Internic should just shut down the TCP/IP traffic that transit out of North Korea (or make them go through China).

I guess they listened...North Korea's Internet connection goes cold just days after President Obama promised a response. hahaha

 

[drjekelmrhyde]

It won't be released until Sony knows for sure how much more damage($) the rest of those emails have in them.
/IMHO. It must be lots if they pulled a $44 million dollar movie

 

[MID.AS]

With all the hype this film is getting I'm surprised that somebody isn't picking it up. Once the hype dies down its just going to maybe break even like most comedies do. I think Sony should rush it to DVD while people are still talking about it that way they can profit off of it and people can still see it.

You think that if movie theatres won't show it and streaming services won't touch it, that on-line/high street retailers would happily sell the DVD?! I suspect not!

 

[Guest]

You think that if movie theatres won't show it and streaming services won't touch it, that on-line/high street retailers would happily sell the DVD?! I suspect not!

Well the movie theaters were specifically targeted and seeing how it was a hack then its reasonable that online services would be hesitant. If they have to find a way to make money on it then DVD sales would be the best bet IMO.

 

[Guest]

How sbout Sony knew the movie was a stinker and invented all this hacking blitherblather, I suspect they may have hacked themselves siiply to cover their illicit bitcoin minig. They bought millions of gpus supposedly for animation and ray tracing but tge execs have been running them for bit n lite coin mining then claiming back the cost of capex and leccy, using movie production tax credits. I feel sorry for pacman as he cant logon to xbox wild nor visit d'world.

 

[Guest]

Pacman be good fellow. Pls leave alone.

 

[Guest]

Pac-Man! PLZ!