
Sony posts whole movie on YouTube in trailer's place - edward
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44711274?ocid=socialflow_twitter
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chadmeister
This wasn't an accident. It was a marketing stunt to get some buzz around an
otherwise unnote worthy movie release.

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gruez
and this "leak" is worthless because a blu-ray version was already leaked last
year.

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BinaryIdiot
Uh, "leak" you say? The movie was _released_ to DVD and Blu-Ray in 2017[1].
This is how their Indie films work; they typically get released to DVD and
Blu-Ray then show up in some small theaters the following year. This was no
exception.

[1] [http://a.co/2aep4au](http://a.co/2aep4au)

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robbrown451
I think the use of the word "leak" was supposed to be clever/funny

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Animats
_The low-budget film - which is about a Los Angeles-based hitman - had
previously attracted little attention, despite having already been released in
parts of Europe and playing at film festivals._

It's hard to see this happening by mistake. Movie companies don't usually keep
upload-ready copies of entire movies lying around in-house. The format sent to
theaters is quite different.

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mcphage
The article then points out that Sony previously did the same thing for
Spider-Man 2, so it definitely is a thing that happens by mistake.

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jjuhl
Or it's an attempt to do some "viral" marketing that happens intentionally.

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chaboud
I haven't worked for Sony Pictures since 2005, but I think that the
suggestions of some sort of nefarious marketing plan and the expected
safeguards against accidental content distribution are hilarious.

I can _absolutely_ believe that this happened accidentally.

Films and trailers are uploaded rarely, and it wouldn't surprise me in the
slightest to discover that it's still a manual process.

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tunap
If it is still a manual process, wouldn't the PEBKAC be more likely to notice
the extended upload time? The difference in size between a 2 min & a 90+ min
file upload would be considerable.

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paulie_a
"im just going to click upload and go to lunch"

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wingworks
Yes, if you were planning to upload the whole movie, but if you plan to upload
a 2min trailer, you're not expecting it to take very long, likely only a
minute or two. Unless Sony has considerably slower internet then I imagine.

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chaboud
There's a hardcore Starbucks culture in Culver City. Any delay is sufficient
cause to go get coffee.

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guildenstern
Presumably Sony and other major corporate users of YouTube do not have
employees selecting a file and sitting waiting for it to upload every time a
trailer needs to go out, nor do they give employees access to these high value
YouTube accounts. Presumably they have a system between their staff and
YouTube that is responsible for uploads, and in that system a mistake like
this —- referencing the wrong file —- would be much easier to make and go
unnoticed.

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jcranmer
According to the Ars Technica article on this, this is actually quite likely--
the UI for these systems is apparently typically sufficiently bad that you
have to copy a numeric ID, and you won't get feedback as to what the numeric
ID actually referred to.

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gruez
Ars quote in question:

>The processes used by organizations like Sony to publish videos to platforms
both owned and otherwise could present opportunities for error. (I know this
because I used to work for a major broadcast TV network.) It could have been
as simple as a young, entry-level digital producer accidentally copying and
pasting the wrong video ID number from the company's internal repository of
video files into a proprietary publishing tool that bulk-publishes several
videos in a daily push via the YouTube Data API and the equivalents on other
platforms.

I don't buy this explanation because the setup would be hilariously insecure.
It would be like having a company-wide file share that anyone can access, and
placing all your trade secrets on it. It might make sense for broadcast TV
networks, considering all their content is distributed for free anyways.

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ant512
This is the same Sony that was famously hacked in 2014:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Pictures_hack](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Pictures_hack)

From the Wikipedia page:

“The hackers involved claim to have taken more than 100 terabytes of data from
Sony”

“The data included personal information about Sony Pictures employees and
their families, e-mails between employees, information about executive
salaries at the company, copies of then-unreleased Sony films, and other
information.”

The YouTube mistake sounds to me like a publicity stunt, but “hilariously
insecure” isn’t necessarily an incorrect assessment of Sony’s infrastructure.

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astrodust
It's not unlike other trailers in that it spoils the whole movie.

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vehementi
I too read the jokes in the article

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IronBacon
A few months back Sony pushed the full version of the latest Yakuza game on
PSN instead of a demo build, but they pulled it a couple of days later.

To be fair the error seems it was made by Sega, but you know blaming Sony is
more fun... ^__~

[http://www.siliconera.com/2018/02/26/yakuza-6-demo-36-gb/](http://www.siliconera.com/2018/02/26/yakuza-6-demo-36-gb/)
[http://www.siliconera.com/2018/02/28/yakuza-6-demo-pulled-
pl...](http://www.siliconera.com/2018/02/28/yakuza-6-demo-pulled-playstation-
store-people-manage-unlock-full-game/)

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machinesmachine
I'm not gonna mention "The Interview" from 2014 then...

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tajen
or the various data breaches of both the PSN and the employees.

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pro_zac
Someone didn't check their work before pushing to production.

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ourmandave
I'd love to read their commit comment.

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ourmandave
Was Sony hacked again?

Maybe NK's Dear Leader wanted to Youtube and Chill with his besties.

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mv4
just like the early days of YouTube!

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akerro
There are still plenty of full movies on YouTube, just search by profile not
bye title.

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rm_-rf_slash
Sony probably figured the best way to stay one step ahead of the North Koreans
was to hack themselves.

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kzzzznot
Anyone know details of the file? (codec, bitrate, filesize).

Obvious marketing stunt is obvious.

