“The Interview” Now Available on Google Play and YouTube Movies | Hacker News Reader

“The Interview” Now Available on Google Play and YouTube Movies

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85 pointsNavarr35 comments

(Applause)

I wonder if Netflix was considered, or if the lack of PPV revenue disqualified the most popular streaming service in the country.

Scuttlebutt is they're still in talks with them.

What's really weird to me is that it isn't on iTunes.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/12/24/sony-wanted-the-in...

and what a mistake it is to only release it in the US... lets keep building walls on the internet... sigh

I'm in Canada right now and was puzzled why I couldn't find it. Shesh ... this sucks.

You can not find it in the US either, it is not actually released yet.

Starting 10 am PST.

It's the same story every time. If Sony doesn't want my money I'll be more than happy to continue paying my private BT tracker to watch it.

You'd think that we would start getting the same respect as other states. I mean come on! Canadian cities are richer than some American states now. Why won't you take our loonies?

Awesome! Although I am not currently in the US, I am able to watch the movie. Perhaps maybe because my account was previously established in the US.

Interesting. I guess YT and Google Play don't geolocate the IP each time. Every other video streaming provider I've checked denied me on my recent trip to Europe.

The post also mentions seetheinterview.com and xbox videos, perhaps the title can be amended to add those?

seetheinterview.com redirects to kernel.com for me--is that intentional?

Blank here. Looks like it's going through the motions.

I assume that that is the vod platform they are using.

(I work at Stripe.)

Kernel is one of the companies putting this together. They temporarily put up the redirect (movie doesn't go live until 10a PT). About to put up a more informative redirect page.

So made a huge mistake limiting this to the US.

Is it possible that this whole thing has been a publicity stunt by Sony?

Fake a threat, pretend to withdraw the film, wait for public uproar, release on a pay per view platform to massive sales.

Before the story broke I didn't know anything about this film.

Real case of cyberwar? Or PR master stroke?

If this was a publicity stunt, then it may well be the worst one ever! They were humiliated in the press, the President reprimanded them, and their strongest partners (the big theater chains) all turned their back on them.

You must not work in PR. This story has been at the forefront of the news cycle for awhile now, and it's probably a super forgettable film.

I agree that this is probably good coverage for the movie, as I imagine many others like myself would never have even considered watching it, but now actually want to see it given the interesting context.

On the other hand, I still can't imagine they would be dumb enough to fake this, considering they opened an FBI investigation and there were threats of physical violence. The risk to reward just doesn't make any sense.

There's an old saying in PR: don't let your main distribution channel refuse to carry your product. Also, don't let anyone threaten your potential customers with death or terrorist attack!

There's a possibility that showing The Interview on YouTube and other sites will result in online streaming becoming a huge runaway revenue success. But that's a huge gamble to make, especially when the movie is scoring just a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_interview_2014/

Don't know why you're being downvoted, it really feels that way to me as well. Lot of people with strong opinions must not appreciate that they've been played.

Think about it: Sony intentionally leaked its own employee records and emails just to boost publicity of a movie that's bound to be popular on its own right. How plausible is that theory?

The hack was in all likelihood real, (but probably not North Korean). Sony made the best of a bad situation.

I don't think the hack was fake, I think that pulling the interview smells highly contrived. Just to be clear.

I wonder if HN has considered making the general information about downvotes available? I'd like to see metrics on how many of the downvoters downvote more than the average amount.

This place is really turning into reddit lately. Nothing wrong with that comment, except some people happened to disagree with it.

I would have originally agreed, but the emails and employee info leaked are pretty damaging; and how exactly would they have roped the FBI in on it?

Nothing like provoking and accusing a sovereign nation of criminal acts to promote your sweet new flick.

No, I don't think it was a publicity stunt.

There is zero percent chance this was a publicity stunt.

You really think Sony would fake a "9/11 style" threat against movie theaters, in today's world?

The only plausible "publicity stunt" scenario is that after the real hacking, the real threats, the real refusal of theaters to show the movie, that Sony pretended they wouldn't even release it online in order to drum up online sales when they finally changed course.

The embarrassment they have suffered along with the damaged relationships with artists is going to affect them for a number of years. The coming lawsuit by former employees for the loss of personal information.

Let's not forget that a terrorist threat against your customers (theaters / viewers) is really bad for business. So, let's say one of the places playing the show suffers an attack by some crazy. Sony is going to be on the hook in a big way. US courts[1] are known to pay out some huge settlements[2].

So, a loser in so many ways with no upside for profit.

1) http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/new-lawsuit-claims-...

2) Despite politicians and other calling them "cowards" you would have to be insane to release a film suffering such a terroristic threat. If the politicians believe we shouldn't buckle then they should pass some tort reform.

2) is in fact pretty obvious. If you check the behaviour of people in the west before terrorism became well known (halfway through the 90s or so) and after you can see that a lot of terrorist demands have in fact been met.

From this perspective, terror really works very well.

Flagged.

Seriously, this is a publicity stunt (this article at least).

This is literally a non-tech consumer product advertisement being put on the front page of Hacker News. It should be treated as such.

While I kind of understand - at the same time I don't see it violating the Guidelines.

Though it admittedly skirts the line between on-topic and off-topic

The "new" section is literally full of "Go check out the Interview here!" links.

Links which contain nothing more than "Here's where you can watch the Interview". A film nobody cared about, seemingly, until the alleged NK hack. And the look at how fast some of the upvotes have happened on those stories.

At the very least, we should be treating and flagging these things the same way we do any other stupid "Buy our product" submissions that creep onto the new section.

EDIT:

And so many downvotes today for questioning the obvious. Thanks folks!

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