The Interview
stripe.com
stripe.com
The way stripe checkout works, that token is passed to your server and you do an API request to stripe with the token. The token merely represents your card. The charge is done on the server.
I'll take the downvote rather than pile-on with criticism that is almost certainly misplaced. I find it very unlikely the GP downloaded the movie for free. If i'm wrong, I'll gladly retract, but the presence of the test key in the comments is hardly an indication that it'll work on the server.
4242424242424242 for Visa
And rejects test cards:
card_declined: Use this special card number - 4000000000000002.
edit: To be clear I haven't tested this and don't have time today with xmas and such.
Step 1) Go to https://twitter.com/search?q=seetheinterview.com%2Fplayer%2F
Step 2) Click on a link to seetheinterview.com's player
Step 3) Either use a USA VPN or enter the '403 Forbidden' URL into a USA web proxy such as http://www.usawebproxy.com/
https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/The_Interview?i...
and YouTube:
Well I guess I won't be paying to watch this crappy movie.
It's disappointing it isn't also launching internationally, but I'm optimistic - if this makes lots of money, then it will prove that it makes sense to launch new movies online. Then in the future we may see more movies launch like this, and with more preparation time, hopefully also internationally.
Which country works?
>Sorry, we were unable to process this request. Any charge >will be automatically cancelled within 24 hours. Please try >again after 24 hours.
Come on. Your option is to wait. From the site: "we do hope to see the release of The Interview across the globe"
In fact, it's entirely possible that those deals were in place before filming even began, and some money may have changed hands at that time, helping to finance the film.
In short, there's almost certainly a partner of Sony in other countries that Sony has obligations to. Sony can't just alter those deals at will like it can alter its own plans in North America.
Your position is pretty easily summed up then.
As much as I can't wait to see the movie (because I'm a fan of absurdist comedy) I'm tired of this conversation. Release it or don't, everyone who wants to see it will. Release it globally or don't, but quit acting like it takes some act of heroism to release a movie outside the U.S.
That said, I see pirating in this context as civil disobedience. It's not a new concept, and is used all the time to convey that the status quo is unacceptable to society at large.
There is the "choice" to accept things as they are, whether or not you believe them to be good and proper. Or you can break the law on purpose, with purpose, with intent to disobey laws and rules that you see as counter to the greater good.
Remember, this is copyright law we're talking about. Pirating is not thievery, and I personally see pirating in places where content is unavailable to be in the same wheel house as pirating as a voice against the absurdity of insanely extended copyright laws.
For instance, see The Grey Album.
As for copyright in general - extended copyright laws are nuts. I personally think it's fair for someone to have copyright until they die (no passing it on to relatives etc.). Also, it's a unpopular opinion here, but I consider piracy theft. And I'm not saying that to be morally superior - I've pirated lots of stuff but I consider it theft and wrong.
Not necessarily.
To properly allow your product to be sold in multiple international markets, you need to have customer support in the local languages. You need to support the popular local payment systems. You need localized fraud detection (risks differ by area). You also need to comply with local laws (copyright law differs by country, and rights to show movies may need to be negotiated separately).
It's true that you can just put something on YouTube for free and forget about it, and in that case, locking it to one region is just being mean. But when launching a paid and supported product, it's just not that easy.
edit: you also need subtitles or dubbing in some areas
edit: but I realize you do make a fair point, just being on YouTube means that it removes some of the technical difficulties in launching in multiple countries. It still leaves a lot of others, though.
Did you somehow miss how software or SaaS is sold these days? Worldwide?
The real reason is probably something mentioned elsewhere here: distribution contracts already in place.
It's great that they're making progress, but by supporting them in the way they are currently attempting to segregate the Internet now, we will lose future debates about the border-less Internet.
Compromise is appropriate in many places, but I do not think this is one of them. We should make sure they know why we're not supporting their current move, but I don't think we should capitulate the border-less Internet.
Why? Paying to movie producing companies means more DRM schemes, more filesharing restrictions and more copyright lobbying. To protect freedom of speech and weaken copyright regulations we need Hollywood to die from starvation.
% curl https://www.seetheinterview.com/ -D - -o /dev/null -s|grep Server
Server: nginx/1.0.12
http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx-announce/2013/00012...
Kernel is one of the companies putting this release together. They put up the redirect temporarily; about to put a more informative placeholder until the 10a PT launch.
https://www.kernel.com/movies/the-5th-wave
Looks like its being built as a platform to upsell/preorder for movies.
This is a great example of content providers finally beating piracy by providing a simpler method of content distribution. I hope more movies come out like this.
Besides other, admittedly far from mainstream movies did this a lot better - "Sleepwalk with me" or last years highly praised "Computer Chess" offered a DRM-free, 1080p download and a streaming option, both without region-lock and for a reasonable price. Still an exception unfortunately.
I suspect they really wanted as much of a launch as possible by Christmas, for symbolic reasons. (I think that was the original intended release date?). Kudos to them for managing to achieve a fairly significant launch.
- only available in the US or from a US based ip address
- only works with US based credit cards
- available for 48h
- will be streamed to the browser
Outside of the US: http://imgur.com/iWvOgFI
After removing hiddens: http://imgur.com/2E1dALE
Irony much?
Thanks, North Korea!
(In true HN fashion this is where I would write "Full Disclosure: I work for the DPRK, but this does not color my opinions.")
Some of the praise is just because they use the dictators name, willingly. This is actually rather new. Political Correctness dictates you don't. Yes we all knew Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" was about Hitler, but he didn't use the name. Most studios won't do this, its rather bold and new to do that. The only people who really have are SNL, and South Park -esque shows. Not internationally screening studio movies.
As David Edelstein said, "Its a low brow comedy, a political bold, low brow comedy. Laugh and have fun."
Some of the selected quotes there:
"It's just stupid enough that some things are funny. Sadly, it isn't smart enough to realize that other things aren't terribly funny and that an opportunity was lost here."
"The remarkably dismal quality is emblematic of the mind-set that brought the movie, and its attendant crises, into being."
Rotten Tomatoes is pretty horrible for determining if a movie is worth seeing.
It seems like the closer the ratings get to 50%, the more unreliable the reviews are. I use that as a point of measure.
The Interview is looking pretty mediocre from the reviews but I look forward to seeing it anyway.
Fair point. For some more context, though, The Great Dictator came out in 1940 - almost at the peak of Hitler's power. North Korea today is worrying, but nowhere near the status Germany had in 1940. It's therefore more impressive that Chaplin was willing to parody Hitler as he did, even with a fake name and fake country.
I just re-watched The Great Dictator a few days ago. It's amazingly funny even today, holds up great.
Stripe works by having pages invoke their "stripe.js" within the host page. The risk of mixing payment processing input into a general site is that anything that can access the DOM can patch "stripe.js" and tap the credit card data. Since this page is very likely to be attacked, that's a big risk here.
The page uses several off-site Javascript files. Attacks through the CDN that distributes "bootstrap.js", for example, might work.
In 2015, payment card requirements are tightening up. Sites which use third party processors like Stripe will probably have to put credit card entry into an iframe which comes directly from the third party processor. This makes the attack surface smaller.
https://www.seetheinterview.com/player/?p=30&e=1419653096&ci...
Well said, Stripe.
On a side note, I'll be really interested to see site activity statistics if they ever become available.
And in the comments here:
"By jove, go out and buy it!"
"Jolly good, and what might that cost?"
"The low price of 5.99 pounds, my good man!"
"Huzzah!"
Beurk