Governments can have courage. That doesn’t mean they will. John Kiriakou is in jail right now for speaking out against war crimes committed by the CIA because the current executive branch are cowards.
The grand irony here is that it is a foreign government stifling freedom of expression of a corporation…
I don’t watch Fox News because…well…I’m human, but the channel happened to be on it this evening and they broke to an ad with “Obama caves in on Cuba and North Korea in one day! When we get back”
COME ON!
Interesting rhetorical technique, using an example of the government protecting against the government to argue that the government doesn’t always protect against a government. But wouldn’t the opposite example have been more effective for your argument?
No “Team America” now, either. Paramount pulled the plug on that plan.
I’m not sure how to feel about that. It makes me wonder if Paramount is admitting that they don’t have their own servers secure enough to prevent an attack and are trying to keep their name out of this in fear of another security breach.
I’m still seeing constant commercials for this movie.
Heh. I just got this.
The hoopla reminds me of the True Lies ruckus 20 years ago. No one backed down over that. But then, that was before 9/11 and theater shootings.
Are you objecting to the term caves in? 
I bow before your superior logic. :rolleyes:
Yes, governments don’t always show courage and corporations aren’t always cowards.
But that’s the way to bet.
And madsircool, I’d argue that in your example governments are showing tremendous courage in protecting the rights of minorities against the oppression and bigotry of the majority. One of thousands of such examples.
ETA: And of course, it is not and never has been illegal to pray in school or even lead a prayer. It only is a problem if the school (i.e. its representatives) itself causes, sanctions, or leads the prayer in its official capacity. But let’s not introduce facts into such an argument.
I’m objecting to the idea that Obama has anything to do with Sony’s decision.
Has anyone seen or heard of the movie The Red Chapel? Buzzfeed has an article "You Can’t See “The Interview,” So Watch This Comedy About North Korea Instead," and it sounds interesting.
It sounds good, I’m going to try to watch it this weekend.
Freedom of expression is a limitation on the power of government, insisted on after centuries of hard-won experience that governments were very often not benign and were (like any human institution) most often courageous in protecting the prerogatives of their leaders.
Nope, The studio takes about 50 to 55% of the total box office. (in North America) So if something does 100 million domestic, then the studio, eventually, collects about 55 million dollars.
Look, Americans invented hacking. Can’t we just have folks hack them back? I mean, publish a list of Kim’s favorite porn titles? Hack into the doubtless myriad of security cams that they must have? Etc. Etc.
First off, it’s not SONY caving it. It’s the theater chains. Once Regal, AMC and Cinemark said ‘no thanks’ the film didn’t stand a chance. Those three circuits represent the majority of theaters in America.
The 50 Cent movie was basically rejected by Regal when it come out. They took a much smaller number of runs due to ‘security concerns’ but they were the only chain to do so.
Now I’m wondering, what movies are going to benefit from this? Will theaters take on extra prints of Into the Woods or hold movies that were going to drop off a little longer? Suddenly there is a huge gap that has to be filled with something. Those screens won’t be dark.
Not to complicate things, but this gets even more labyrinthine when the production studio (Columbia in this case) and the distributor (Sony) are different. The distributor does collect that 50%-55%, then they deduct some pre-agreed costs for P&A (prints and advertising), and then they’ll have some kind of deal with studio…they’ve either leased it in return for some % of the revenue, or come to some sort of agreement on profit share. I haven’t seen anything on how the Columbia-Sony deal is structured, but I’ll bet it’s out there in the 38 million files that were stolen. Given that Columbia is a sub of Sony it may not matter to the top line, but it matters to SPE.
Actually, thinking through this further, it all washes out for Sony, so why would they care? Never mind. :o
Is anyone else not 100% there? Every day I use code generated in Redmond, WA, but I’ll be damned if Microsoft gets credit for my work.
Oh my, an Originalist!
Spare me. In today’s world, either the government protects your freedom of expression or you have none. Corporations don’t enter into this.