The Sony Caper

Mr. Dick Move himself makes his mark on the entertainment industry

You can usually tell when there's an event that historians will cite as turning points, such as Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Then there are some events that people at the time miss. IMHO, the Sony hack is going to be one of those turning points that weren't recognized on day one.  

Sony is now receiving criticism for pulling The Interview. That's really minor compared to the hack-damage that's been done to Sony. Whether The Interview has been pulled from distribution or not is insignificant.

Why? Because I think is Sony is out of business anyway, at least their entertainment division, which is already earthshaking. This hack has left the company a crumbling wreck, their losses are in the hundreds of millions and counting, probably as much as a half-billion dollars. That's much more significant to free speech and everything else than any bravery Sony shows now. Hackers have shown they can totally ruin a major multinational company. This is a done deal no matter what happens with The Interview. 

It looks like the GofP will have to deal with whoever gets Sony's assets in receivership. I doubt that extortionist demands are recognized as obligations by bankruptcy courts.

This attack was so thorough, I'm wondering if it's just the North Koreans who are behind it, because this is a major shot to the MPAA and their anti-Piracy policy. It's shown Hollywood that retaliations for censoring the Internet will hurt it. 

(I'm not being pro-Piracy there, I'm just against the heavy handed measures proposed in SOPA.)

Now that a major corporation has been wounded through hacking and higher ups will lose their jobs over this, it's going to send an earthquake through Hollywood, which is going to have a vast effect of entertainment. This, however, will spread through the corporate community. Online security is going to become almost ridiculous. I can see companies going "off the grid" because of this. Paper and mail will make a comeback.  There will be a federal agency or several created just to deal with Internet security and investigations.

If it can happen to a major corporation, it can happen to anyone. Independent film makers, documentary makers, are going to have to have an extra layer of brave, and an Internet security person to keep them in business. Possibly.
 
It's impossible to say in the long run how this is going to work out for free speech and creativity. Because that depends also on the response to this event.

It looks like North Korea has left its mark on pop culture.