"The Interview" Downloads: Sony Vs. Torrent

While "The Interview" had modest distribution and revenues in movie theaters, it gained nice on line traction, mainly in the legitimate (paid) rental and purchase - but also in file sharing:

• Liana B. Baker report for Reuters that "Sony Pictures said on Sunday that the "The Interview" had been purchased or rented online more than 2 million times, generating more than $15 million in the first four days after the controversial comedy's wide theatrical release was shelved.
  This would rank the film, which angered North Korea and triggered a cyberattack against the studio, as the No. 1 online movie ever released by Sony Pictures, the company said in a statement.
  The film has also brought in $2.8 million in the limited theatrical run that began Christmas Day in more than 300 mostly independent theaters, according to tracking firm Rentrak".
  
  See "'The Interview' Becomes Sony's No. 1 Online Movie Of All Time" - here.
  

• ERNESTO, TorrentFreak, reported that "The unexpected release of The Interview is making headlines around the world, but for now only people inside the U.S. can see the film. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 200,000 people have already circumvented this restriction by turning to torrent sites where the film appeared just an hour after its official release. Even The Pirate Bay joined in and started pointing people to the movie as well".
  
  See "The Interview is a Pirate hit with 200K Downloads" - here. 

Sony Delays OTT Plans because of Comcast Data Caps Policy

    

Last month Netflix' CEO, Reed Hastings, complained in his Facebook page that "Comcast no longer following net neutrality principles. Comcast should apply caps equally, or not at all".

This came after Comcast decided that "The Xbox 360 running our XFINITY TV app essentially acts as an additional cable box for your existing cable service, and our data usage threshold does not apply", creating an unfair advantage to Comcast content (here). In related news, 94% of AT&T stockholders voted against implementing Net Neutrality principles in the giant's wireless network (here).

   

Now Sony joins the protest, and even delaying its plans to launch a video OTT service.

  

Andrew Wallenstein reports to Variety that "Sony Corp. is pressing pause on plans to launch a rival video service to cable and satellite companies in light of a recent Comcast decision that inflamed net neutrality advocates. Michael Aragon, (pictured) VP and GM of global video and music at Sony Network Entertainment, confirmed that his company is considering offering TV via broadband but is waiting for clarity on whether Comcast is allowed to provide consumers access to programming via its Xfinity app on the XBox platform without counting against the cable operator's bandwidth caps."These guys have the pipe and the bandwidth," said Aragon in an appearance Monday at Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit. "If they start capping things, it gets difficult".

  

See "Sony virtual MSO play could hinge on Comcast" - here. 

New Standard Suggests "Local Caching" to Reduce Mobile Network Congestion

   

A new IEEE standard, HQME (High Quality Mobile Experience) is proposed by a "newly formed group of mobile and content industry leaders that includes SanDisk Corporation, SoftBank Mobile, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Orange" takes a new approach for caching - pre-download content when you can (and when it is cheap) - not when you need. As long as you know what to download, I guess.

The standard "leverages local storage and intelligent content caching to relieve network congestion and accelerate data delivery to the mobile device .. Under the proposed IEEE P2200 standard, memory on the mobile device is viewed as the ‘last node on the network.’ This calls for compliant applications to download content when the mobile device is connected to AC power and Wi-Fi instead of during peak hours the next day. Preemptively downloading content to the device’s local storage allows consumers to access the content they want while circumventing the bottlenecks associated with mobile network congestion during peak hours"

See "New IEEE P2200 Draft Standard Aims to Deliver High Quality Mobile Experience (HQME) to Consumers Worldwide" - here and more technical details - here and  here.