this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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North Korea is evading sanctions by animating Max and Amazon shows (arstechnica.com)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Thousands of exposed files on North Korean server tell the tale.

top 43 comments
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Based on the title, I thought it meant they were pulling a "wikiHow" and rotoscoping/reanimating existing movies and TV shows. No, they're contract animators working for HBO Max and Amazon.

When Roy discovered the exposed cloud server, it was being updated on a daily basis. Martyn Williams, a senior fellow on the 38 North Project who helped analyze the contents of the server, says the server likely allowed work to be sent to and from North Korean animators. The server itself is still live, but it mysteriously stopped being used at the end of February. While there is a login page, its contents can be accessed without a username and password. “I found the login page after I found all the exposed files,” Roy says.

I wonder if anyone can find the cloud server, and if so, archive the contents. It's always fascinating seeing behind-the-scenes details about shows, but official behind-the-scenes footage always lacks depth. It'd be cool to archive that stuff.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

The fact that it's not rotoscoped North Korean remakes proves we're not in the Good Place.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Sanctions placed upon the North Korean regime, for its ongoing human rights abuses and nuclear warfare programs, prohibit US companies from working with DPRK companies or individuals

Does that mean the rest of the world is morally obliged to do the same to the US for the same reasons?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

NK literally doesn't have famine because the West gives them food.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not even remotely relevant to what op said.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

This commenter is suggesting people treat the US like they treat NK.

US - NK relations are very one sided. US is offering aid and NK is offering threats. From my understanding the country lives in a hard mix of ignorance and fear because of their government. NK also threatens our allies with nuclear destruction. We still present them with aid.

It is fun and cute to point at all the stuff the US does wrong but I can literally change my president, I can speak ill of them and the information they hide often still comes to light so for OP to suggest people treat the US like that they're choosing to frame them as equals when they're really not. World isn't perfect but the US government is miles above the NK one in basically all regards.

If NK had the money and the US had the famine I don't think they'd be offering aid to the American populace in the same way the US does.

So yes it is extremely relevant to consider how you'd be treated if the roles were reversed and then you understand why these sanctions are in place. NK is no ally and most of their positions on international affairs are simply anti-west.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I don’t fuck with the North Korean government but starting a population because of their leaders they can’t even elect is fucked up and our leaders are conquering the world while we pay them to do it and no one punishes us for it

why are they so poor? why is Cuba so poor? How many countries has north korea bombed? How many coups have they orchestrated around the world? How many genocides have they committed and are committing? Collective punishment is a war crime, the North Korean people and the Cuban people shouldn’t suffer and starve for the crimes of their leaders. If you think they should but don’t think we deserve punishment for them millions of innocent people or governments kill then maybe you should wonder why you think that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I think it is very easy to say that. If you had the US government and their allies, what would you do then?

Befriend them? Tried that got Hitler.

Eradicate them? Lost wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Korea over the same thing.

Let them be? And if they start accruing power and their way of being is a threat to yours, what then?

I'm not saying I agree but you act as if it is assault or something

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's so unfair! 😭💔

Everyone bullies Kim and no one stands up the the US 😡

It this was a school yard than it would be the most unfair schoolyard ever! 💯💯💯

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Annoying use of emojis

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌there👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my self 💯 i say so 💯 ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠOOOOOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀 👀 👀 👌👌Good shit

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

I propose the title "Amazon and HBO Max offshore work, which ended up paying North Korea. But the stock market responded well."

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Isn't this common knowledge? Plenty of animated series from the 80s and onwards were animated in NK.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

sanctions on NK goes from hard to soft im waves over the years. arguably the heaviest sanctions were imposed from nuclear tests they conducted in like the 2000s. not sure where sanctions on animation came into place, but they very well could've been allowed at one point when tensions weren't as high.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Good for them. Maybe the sanctions should be removed since:

A) they obviously dont work and

B) if socialism is so bad i'm sure the state will fall on it's own without outside pressure

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

NK

Socialism

Choose one

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Tankies, at least on Lemmy, tend to base their opinion less on actual leftist ideology and entirely on "US bad". That's why they love Putin's Russia so much, why they support the oppressive North Korean dictatorship, and also why they manage to "broken clock" themselves into the right side of the Israeli genocide of Palestine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

NK good started up as soon as NK delivered weapons for Russia.

Not a coinkydoink.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Sanctions never worked as intended. Troll farms are nowadays more powerful.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Sanctions never work~~ed as intended.~~

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Fuck North Korea.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Uncritical support to the DPRK in its heroic struggle against the genocidal US empire

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

heroic struggle against the genocidal US empire

Damn that's specially relevant right now

Common DPRK W

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

uncritical support for the DPRK in its heroic struggle to liberate occupied Korea from the genocidal American empire.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But like... Where can I watch these?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Amazon and HBO. They were doing animation for the proper shows. Not creating North Korean clones.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Ohhh I completely misunderstood that. I really wanted to watch bootleg animations with the same audio.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Awww, I was hoping for "sweded" movies!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Glad neither are getting my money

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Some of the projects included work from season 3 of the Amazon show Invincible

hype

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Fucking tankies in this thread.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Hello

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Block em.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Certainly makes it easy when they expose themselves

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Sanctions placed upon the North Korean regime, for its ongoing human rights abuses and nuclear warfare programs

Damn where are the sanctions on the US? You know, the only country crazy enough to use those nukes on actual human beings instead of just using it as a deterrence like the DPRK does?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You’re delusional

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

What part isn't true tho?

Jingoists are hilarious on all sides.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Why would they do that instead of pirating it?

Where are the files?

This seems like one of those news stories about North Korea that nobody bothered to think critically about, let alone verify.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The article isn’t talking about taking the end product, it is about North Korean’s involved with the movie’s production by providing low cost manual labor for animating or ‘drafting’ the images for the shows (and then presumably a portion of this income is fed into the state). They’re not supposed to be doing this, but have identified ways to get jobs passed to them via some sort of broker who allocated part of the work to them or gets their citizens placed using fake credentials.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

Oh I see, I assumed the article was going to be "north korea is making animated versions of existing films for silly reasons", because the article started with "north koreans are only allowed to use the internet with someone else sitting right next to them and approving every 5 minutes"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What's more likely is Amazon and HBO contracted a South Korean studio who subcontracted a Chinese studio for some of the more mundane animations, and they proceeded to sub-subcontract a North Korean studio.

There's a lot of outsourcing for animation, this happened like 15 years ago with Avatar: The Last Airbender, where one of the South Korean studios involved with Book 3 subcontracted some work to China (cursory Google says DR Movie, which collaborated with a Chinese studio based in Qingdao)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Reposting part of a comment I made in another thread about this, but:

animation across east Asian countries outsources labor between each other all of the time. Your Japanese anime is just as much Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese at this point, as it is Japanese.

Go look at the credits of most modern anime productions out of Japan, and large swathes of the names you see aren't Japanese, but are from those other countries.

Even a fairly low stakes, low budget, slice of life anime, like Non Non Biyori has Vietnamese names all over its god damn credits, because globalization has impacted the east Asian animation industry in such a way, that there's an large cross pollination of talent across borders, for better and worse.

And that's not to mention the western animation that gets outsourced to these places, South Korea especially.

The fact North Korea is also involved in this complex outsourcing process shouldn't be surprising to anyone who knows anything about how that industry works.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Why would they do that instead of pirating it?

I realize you're from Hexbear and hence incapable of rational thought, but you could still pretend to read the article before commenting.