Sony Piracy In ‘The Interview’: Lawsuit Says Song ‘Pay Day’ Used Without Permission
For Sony, piracy has had a history of upsetting them. Unfortunately, due to the recently released film The Interview, they are the ones being sued while the film itself is being pirated across the internet.
The film centers around two journalists being sent to assassinate Kim Jong Un, and initially the movie had upset the North Korean dictator and began an avalanche of problems for the movie. As his disapproval was made known, an anonymous hacker leaked Sony documents from various emails, and then threatened a September 11-style terrorist attack on any theater which showed the movie on Christmas Day.
Many major movie theaters pulled The Interview from their line-up as a result, and Sony temporarily canceled their plans to release the movie at all. The terrorist threat turned out to be a bluff, though now accusations of Sony piracy threaten the company, with online piracy going both ways.
I think the anti-piracy folks at Sony and Universal have an overdose of the Bourne trilogy http://t.co/AhI1h5JTn1
— nigelb (@nigelbabu) December 27, 2014
Yoon Mi Rae (born Natasha Shanta Reid in the U.S.) is a successful pop singer who found much of her success in North Korea, where the film partially takes place. Her record label had been in negotiations with Sony over the use of the song “Pay Day,” and they had thought after Sony appeared to drop the deal, the song would not be used because they were not paid.
The song in question made it into the movie, and Feel Ghood Music, Yoon Mi Rae’s label, is planning to sue Sony for apparent theft of their property.
“There were initial discussions for using ‘Pay Day’ in the movie, but at some point, the discussions ceased and we assumed that it would not follow through.
“However, after the movie was released, we learned that the track had been used without permission, legal procedure, or contracts.
“We will be taking legal action against Sony Pictures as well as DFSB, the agency that had been carrying out the discussion regarding the use of the track.”
The Sony piracy lawsuit is only one of many headaches the company is facing this holiday season, another being the ongoing problem of their PlayStation Network having been taken down since Christmas Eve. While Lizard Squad appears to have taken credit for it, Sony is still struggling to put the service back online despite the group having allegedly stopped their DDoS attacks.
After having used root kits to stop offline and online piracy themselves, Sony seems to be the last company to want to be caught stealing property. Coupled with their alleged accidental funding of torrent sites, this is quite awkward.
Sony is having almost nothing but problems after the hack which nearly destroyed their IT. Profits from The Interview will undoubtedly make up for their losses, but for Sony, piracy on both ends has become an all new issue.
[Image via Soompi]
