[HN Gopher] North Korean animation outsourcing for Amazon, HBO M...
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North Korean animation outsourcing for Amazon, HBO Max series
Author : zdw
Score : 172 points
Date : 2024-04-22 18:51 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.38north.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.38north.org)
| johnea wrote:
| Isn't North Korea working on something like cartoon animation, a
| good thing?
| markus_zhang wrote:
| But then they get paid. We don't want them get paid.
| evan_ wrote:
| and to clarify- the "they" who gets paid is probably not the
| person doing the animating
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Yeah the majority of the $$$ probably goes to we know who.
| ses1984 wrote:
| Maybe, but what if it's basically slave labor and the money
| goes to the regime?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It depends on who is defining "good"
| loudmax wrote:
| These aren't North Korean entrepreneurs building businesses in
| a free market. Any enterprise in North Korea should be
| understood as slave labor to provide support for a criminal
| regime.
| johnea wrote:
| Isn't that the same thing as working for a publicly traded
| company?
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Generally, how far downstream does the US State Department expect
| companies to vet vendors for sanctions violation? Due diligence
| this many layers deep is expensive, especially if hostile
| (investigative work to proactively discover dishonest sourcing
| reports.) I would think it would vary by industry--e.g. animation
| is obviously less stringent than medical devices so would have
| fewer reporting and certification structures already set up. Does
| anyone have experience dealing with this?
| jsiepkes wrote:
| So all that's required would then just be to outsource it to a
| bunch of companies who then outsource it and then claim you
| have: "no knowledge"?
|
| You're the one outsourcing, so it's your responsibility. The
| entire chain.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Yes, of course, but I was asking what level of due diligence
| is expected to verify that the chain does not violate
| sanctions.
|
| In other words, when a problem like this is discovered, the
| US State Department will assign more blame to the company if
| their attempts to avoid violating sanctions fell below a
| threshold; what is that threshold for the arts industry.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| > Yes, of course, but I was asking what level of due
| diligence is expected to verify that the chain does not
| violate sanctions.
|
| The same as you were employing them directly.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Yeah, but "outsource it to a bunch of companies who then
| outsource it" is literally how the economy works. The most
| mundane product you can imagine has a network of upstream
| suppliers that is essentially incomprehensible in its
| complexity.
| mhsred5 wrote:
| At some point maybe stop outsourcing and just do the work.
|
| Boeing used to make airplanes. Now they outsource the work
| of "make the airplanes" and all it cost them was their
| reputation.
|
| Less outsourcing, more just doing the work please.
| johngladtj wrote:
| Ok, so you expect the airline to mine the ore to make the
| tools needed to mine the ore needed to make the aluminum
| used in the packaging of the snacks they give out on
| board?
|
| Think about exactly where this ends.
| jsiepkes wrote:
| There is a difference between ordering specialist work
| (i.e. someone makes something to your exact
| specifications) and buying ore on a global market.
|
| But sure, even in case of ore you have a responsibility
| to make sure it isn't being delved by slave labour.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Even when you "stop outsourcing and just do the work",
| you're just subtracting a ~4 bit integer from a ~16 bit
| integer.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The entire chain all the way down is sanctioned, the US can and
| will climb up and down that chain to punish sanctions
| violations. A company like Disney will have to have a Sanctions
| Compliance Program and like any other compliance regime, there
| are standards, external auditors, etc. to make sure enough is
| being done, and "enough" can be a bit of a moving target. If
| you get caught having sanctioned suppliers, those standards and
| auditing get kicked up a notch, if you did a really bad job
| maybe fines or criminal charges.
|
| There isn't ever a sense of "I'm doing enough and therefore the
| sanctions violations happening are no longer my fault". It's
| somewhat up to you to determine your risk and tailor your
| compliance program to address them and to adjust if you're ever
| wrong.
|
| How guilty you are is a function of how good a job the state
| department thinks you're doing trying to avoid sanctions
| violations.
| 10000truths wrote:
| > How guilty you are is a function of how good a job the
| state department thinks you're doing trying to avoid
| sanctions violations.
|
| Is the standard for this codified in clear language anywhere,
| or is it merely based on the whims of some federal
| prosecutor/judge? If I make digital watches, and I buy coin
| cell batteries from a supplier who buys battery precursors
| from a supplier who buys LiCoO2 from a manufacturer who buys
| lithium-rich brine from a supplier who buys lithium mining
| equipment from a sanctioned entity, how much of the full
| brunt of Uncle Sam's retribution can I expect to come
| crashing down on me?
| beaeglebeachh wrote:
| Feds have 99+% conviction rate and infinite money and time,
| meanwhile you sit in cage and deal with frozen accounts
| while trying to pay your attorney. They imprisoned weev for
| doing arithmetic on wget'ing a public website.
|
| Worst sin is angering the gods. I would imagine most the
| time theyll probably just ask nicely for you to stop, then
| bury you if you don't, but for political or convenient
| targets they seem fine going straight for the throat.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| More based on the whims of a prosecutor. Many small
| companies violate sanctions (usually unknowingly) and don't
| get prosecuted. But stick out too much, and you'll likely
| get hammered.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Quite contrary I would say. An American megacorp will always
| know how much profit from the US sanctions it can do and get
| away with it. Sometimes a slap on the wrist can happen, but
| in general... You do want those campaign donations flowing,
| do you? Then there is no reason to rock the boat.
|
| Smaller companies from other countries may not be so lucky so
| they may actually refrain from such activities.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Thanks; this is helpful. Looking up what sanctions
| compliance/export control professionals proactively do yields
| a ton of additional information.
| peppertree wrote:
| The real question is does North Korean let their animators work
| remote in a LOCL area.
| hawkice wrote:
| Not sure "cost of living" exists in NK the same way it does in
| the rest of the world.
| beaeglebeachh wrote:
| Honestly if N Korea had a cheap/low-barrier remote visa it
| might be attractive. I would imagine having an oppressive
| authoritarian regime looking at you as a prime tax slave might
| mean none of the prols would risk getting their head chopped
| off to mess with you. Meanwhile labor/rent/food gotta be hella
| cheap.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| North Korea is no stranger to famine, so if you want food
| it's probably not the best place to go.
|
| Even for tourists who they are trying to extract lots of hard
| currency from, the food quality is notoriously poor.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Let's game it out.
|
| You go there to work remotely. Food/labor/rest are super
| cheap.
|
| Everyone is starving to death there, to the point where meth
| is casually used by most people to stave off hunger pangs.
|
| Not to mention, if they decide they may just get some fun
| leverage out of a foreign hostage, they may just decide to
| claim you committed a crime and beat you half (or 3/4's) to
| death.
|
| This is just the news stories I can recall off the top of my
| head as well...
| otikik wrote:
| Wow you might want to document yourself a little bit.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| North Korea doesn't have a great history with respect to
| foreign "guests"[1].
|
| Here's a choice quote:
|
| >The four lived together in a two-bedroom house outside of
| Pyongyang, where they were forced to study the writings of
| then-leader Kim Il Sung and were subject to regular beatings.
| They were also featured prominently in propaganda magazines
| and movies.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/07/19/1188656665/travis-king-
| north-...
| beaeglebeachh wrote:
| Totally agree, but I'll point out they entered as
| technically enemy combatants, not with a visa.
|
| And dresnok said the opposite and retired fat and with
| alcohol cirrhotic liver and a nice stolen wife and downtown
| apartment, which is far more than he would've got in USA as
| such a lazy, stupid, criminal that he was. He even become a
| local celebrity as a movie star playing as a white devil.
| hobs wrote:
| Most North Koreans face starvation on a regular basis, and
| being excited about the prospect of having a cowed population
| that serves you is either sociopathic or psychopathic, or
| both. Seek some help.
|
| All of that being said that when those in power think you
| made a single mistake, you're dead.
| krisoft wrote:
| Hard to look at the Otto Warmbier story and say "hey, you
| know what? I wish i could also be there"
| beaeglebeachh wrote:
| I see it as a much worse version of Dubai. The economic
| arbitrage version of fishing for king crab in a lethal
| bering Sea.
|
| Not saying I'd do it. But it might be attractive to the
| right person.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I kind of see the idea but... I don't think it's worth the
| risk. Authority figures in dictatorships just aren't always
| rational. They're by definition not capitalists anyway.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| The economics of where you live are very different in a
| communist (Or whatever NK calls itself now) state. I would
| assume that the people with these jobs don't have an American-
| style commute.
| godelski wrote:
| Seems like a difficult problem to solve. It shows the importance
| of paying close attention. NK has shown to be quite good at
| bypassing sanctions but it seems that the link is almost always
| through China. It would seem that the best way to go about this
| would be through stricter negotiations with them, since they are
| already acting as a significant intermediary. Either they know
| about this or the great firewall is not so great (I suspect a bit
| of both).
|
| Edit: Interesting to see that this particular thread is getting
| heavy traffic and attacked. I'm not sure I've seen this happen on
| HN before, at least not a front page post. @Dang, I guess we can
| add a signup filter to prevent similar usernames being generated
| within a timeframe, since presumably these come from different
| IPs. Should be a simple regex filter and provide some warning
| system? Anyone else know?
|
| https://i.imgur.com/ngexngJ.png
| koito17 wrote:
| @dang is a no-op. You should send an e-mail to
| hn@ycombinator.com. I'm writing one as I write this comment.
| godelski wrote:
| @dang is a signifier that makes it easier for dang to
| visually see his name (or search and differentiate from the
| more common word) in comments. I was writing an email but I
| won't send if you got this covered. Thanks
| pvg wrote:
| _is a signifier that makes it easier for dang to visually
| see his name_
|
| It isn't. That's been explained in many threads of his
| comments, I feel reasonably sure some as previous replies
| to you.
| godelski wrote:
| > It isn't.
|
| Well __I__ can visually distinguish a username more
| easily with @ in front of it. Just the same way as I, and
| many others, use various typographical marks to indicate
| various things. It does also make a *manual* thread
| search easier.
|
| I feel reasonably confident that the vast majority of
| people doing this are not expecting @dang to be pinged,
| but are just using it either due to habit and/or a visual
| indicator. Either way, I'm not sure why this is such a
| big deal and worth more than a single exchange.
| Potentially someone doesn't know, it is okay to inform
| them, but after "I know" or "I didn't know" there is no
| more to be said.
| pvg wrote:
| It's not that big of a deal, the main problem with it is
| people assume this is actually a way to get moderator
| attention for something. It's great that you don't but
| plenty of users don't know that nor are they aware of the
| reliable method of emailing hn@ycombinator.com.
|
| The other, probably more important reason not to do it is
| that it gums up threads with pointless meta which runs
| against the site conventions. If a comment starts with
| @dang, it probably doesn't belong in the thread. Just
| like that meeting, it could have been an email.
| godelski wrote:
| > The other, probably more important reason not to do it
| is that it gums up threads with pointless meta which runs
| against the site conventions.
|
| It seems like we are complaining about the same issue.
| Again, why does this conversation exist since it has
| clearly been established that I am aware and that anyone
| reading is aware. If you got a problem with how I use
| typographical indicators, sorry, I'm going to keep doing
| it. You can keep starting these metas if you want, but it
| seems hypocritical to me. I'll just stop responding to
| prevent more metas, because I've been given no indication
| that anyone thinks it actually pings @dang other than
| people who get upset at people using "@". Seems like a
| classic assumption, where people try to solve a problem
| that doesn't exist (or exists in a very small
| percentage).
|
| And as you can read, I did not start with @dang. It was
| an edit, and into the edit. And as you can read, I was
| going to send an email but then saw several users note
| they did, so wish to not spam the email any more.
|
| I think we're done here and have derailed the thread
| enough. I don't think anyone's opinion is changing, and
| that's perfectly fine.
| pvg wrote:
| _that anyone reading is aware_
|
| That's the thing, they aren't.
|
| _I 've been given no indication that anyone thinks it
| actually pings @dang_
|
| You can find lots of comments by people who think that
| and replies by dang explaining it does nothing. The idea
| that we just have no clue what the effects of this are
| and why moderators think it is best avoided is just an
| odd one. The busybodies repeat this because the
| moderators do. Well, that and they're busybodies.
|
| _I did not start with @dang._
|
| It doesn't matter, editing your comment to add meta is
| the thing that ends up derailing comments and threads.
| It's spamming your own comments, effectively - such
| comments are regularly moderated to the bottoms of
| threads.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| It's certainly interesting seeing the thread get attacked so
| obviously - that's a first as far as I've seen on HN.
|
| In terms of the actual story I think that we should be careful
| not to introduce insane KYC for contractors just to avoid the
| NK boogeyman.
|
| If such measures were introduced, that would seriously restrict
| the ability to work with people from around the world. I also
| fear that scammy companies such as id.me will lobby for such
| measures in order to extract profit from companies who want to
| contract abroad, all the while not actually stopping
| sophisticated threat actors.
| godelski wrote:
| Yeah that is something I'd be worried about as a potential
| "solution." It should not involve placing spyware on
| contractor's systems. And it should not involve bureaucracy
| dependency hell either.
| Arrath wrote:
| To be fair its not only this thread.
| icepat wrote:
| The dodgy AI product spam attacks have been escalating
| recently, or so I've noticed. I don't think I've seen this
| with any other product class here.
| godelski wrote:
| I think I've only seen it once before and that too was on a
| politically contentious thread. Definitely is rare and I
| don't blame anyone for being suspicious given that the spam
| started quite quickly after this post was created (and how
| all comments got initially downvoted). Who is definitely
| within question, but without a doubt the HN sight is under
| attack and is getting significant traffic that is slowing
| it down.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _Edit: Interesting to see that this particular thread is
| getting heavy traffic and attacked._
|
| It isn't, the spam is spread across multiple front page
| stories. There might be some IP address rotation but I'm not
| sure why it's allowed to get through when it would be so easy
| to filter.
| tiahura wrote:
| So it looks like Season 3 of Invincible is a go.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| It's a little ironic considering part of season 2 has some meta
| commentary on how hard it is to create animated shows. Guess
| the easy way is to indirectly outsource it to NK!
| GordonS wrote:
| And even more ironic given it was the _story_ that made
| season 2 such a disappointing bore-fest - the animation was
| superb!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Seems like this thread is being DDoSed (maybe by the Norks).
|
| _> video interviews_
|
| From what I hear, the live deepfakes are getting good enough to
| make these near worthless.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| When I saw the title, I immediately thought of the show
| "Invincible" which had abysmal animation, and lo and behold, its
| right there are the top of the list.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Our of curiosity why did you think Invincible had abysmal
| animation? Which is ironic since in the last seasons they even
| broke the fourth wall and did a tongue in cheek poke at their
| audience who criticize their animation quality explaining how
| they're under crunch and what techniques they use to cut
| corners. Quite clever actually.
|
| Didn't think they were covering up their North Korean animators
| though lol.
| jsheard wrote:
| They didn't do themselves any favors by putting out a nicely
| animated teaser for season 2, which was made by a studio that
| otherwise didn't work on season 2 at all (they were busy
| animating Captain Laserhawk for Netflix)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjDOpHuUppU
| Rapzid wrote:
| I mean, that shaky cam execution is not so great. It feels
| super unnatural.
| vundercind wrote:
| I've only seen season 1 but it's barely even animation. It
| looks like "motion comics".
|
| I enjoyed it anyway (I liked the comic, and this is playing
| out like a "second draft" with some stuff tightened up, so
| that's really cool to see) but it's one of the worst-looking
| animated anythings I've seen. It's on par with the bottom
| half of amateur Flash animation in the '00s.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Great writing. Great voice acting. Why the hell are all the
| non-pivotal scenes barely animated?
|
| Like in one episode an alien spaceship blows up and a static
| gif of an alien goes spinning around.
|
| Just compare that to the animation in Xmen '97 which has a
| similar episode count.
| karaterobot wrote:
| The HN headline is more clickbaitey than the original article,
| which has a different headline and goes out if its way to point
| out that Amazon and HBO are likely not the ones doing the
| outsourcing to North Korea.
|
| > There is no evidence to suggest that the companies identified
| in the images had any knowledge that a part of their project had
| been subcontracted to North Korean animators. In fact, as the
| editing comments on all the files, including those related to US-
| based animations, were written in Chinese, it is likely that the
| contracting arrangement was several steps downstream from the
| major producers.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Not really. Outsourcing and then claiming ignorance is not a
| defense against financing North Korea.
| Arrath wrote:
| Classic 'two steps removed' syndrome.
|
| "I told X to get it done. What X did to get it done is not my
| fault/responsibility."
| beaeglebeachh wrote:
| If it's possible to accidentally pay north Korea that
| should be the fault of whatever financial institution
| (which is held to far more KYC and AML than animators)
| caused that to happen, presuming it went through the
| financial system. HBO likely had no mens rea beyond cash
| flow out animation flow in.
|
| If I can't trust the bank to know more about the UBO of
| some rando after KYC what the hell are we doing this for?
| Yeul wrote:
| The EU recently introduced a law to counter that. Companies
| are responsible for their entire production chain.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| What do you mean with "syndrome"? Of course business
| customers can not be held responsible for what other
| businesses do. If Amazon buys floor tiles for their
| factories from a company that provides floor tiles to many
| other companies, how can Amazon be held responsible for any
| of their unethical practices?
|
| Or is it the faith of hackers that any misdoing in the
| world should always be traced back and blamed on a tech
| giant? From the article:
|
| "There is no evidence to suggest that the companies
| identified in the images had any knowledge that a part of
| their project had been subcontracted to North Korean
| animators."
|
| If it's a subsidiary, that's another case.
| godelski wrote:
| You're oversimplifying the issue, which does nothing to
| bring us closer to a solution.
|
| If you tell X to get something done and ALSO give X rules
| that they must follow and X gets the thing done but
| __breaks the rules__ then this is different. It is also
| different if you have reasonable suspicion to expect them
| to break the rules or are using subversive language to tell
| them to break the rules. These are different things and
| have different consequences.
|
| If you are truely acting in good faith, then yes, it is a
| defense. But determining if that's true is not an easy
| task.
|
| There is good faith, coercion, negligence, and willful
| negligence. These are different things.
| yxwvut wrote:
| I'd go further to say that rules without any verification
| aren't really rules. You don't make a rule without the
| suspicion that it'd be more efficient to break them, and
| if you're not verifying their adherence to those rules,
| your rule is meaningless.
|
| This is the iterated game that morally bankrupt
| manufacturers (IE the vast majority) play to insulate
| themselves in these sort of scandals: - First, they get
| caught doing A,B,C, so they pass rules about A,B,C - Then
| they outsource to someone who is willing to do A,B,C,
| then they get caught outsourcing to violators - Then,
| they impose rules about A,B,C on these firms, but do no
| verification of the firms adherence to those rules. It
| insulates them of liability without ever increasing costs
| (because the firms still get to break the rules and the
| company gets to say "I'm Shocked! I told you not to do
| that!")
| godelski wrote:
| I'm more of the position of "trust but verify."
|
| The verification process is exceptionally difficult.
| We're on HN and I think it should be rather common
| knowledge that attackers almost always beat defenders
| because the game is asymmetric. Attackers only need to
| find a single flaw while defenders need to find a large
| number of defenses. There is a huge difference in the
| resource expenditures between these two groups. This is
| related to the reasons why one single person can fuck
| shit up (e.g. a bad driver can impact tens of thousands
| of other drivers) but it is difficult for a single person
| to fix things. It is the nature of unstable equilibria.
|
| A society, of any form, depends on trust. Like it or not,
| there are no trustless systems available to us. Certainly
| not at any meaningful scale.
|
| This does not mean one should be negligent, but rather
| I'm saying that it isn't easy and the best intentioned
| can still be taken advantage of. We should recognize this
| and accommodate this fact when approaching solutions or
| we will end up with many undesired results.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It absolutely is a defense.
|
| We outsourced to company X, who is bound by law and contract
| not to engage in illegal actions. Company X, without our
| knowledge or approval subcontracted illegally.
| VS1999 wrote:
| If this is true, we just need to make companies liable for
| their subcontractors. They apparently know they can escape
| responsibility by farming out work they're not supposed to
| do.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I dont think it is worth it. Existing law already
| punishes companies operating in bad faith, and I would
| want companies operating in good faith to remain
| protected.
|
| The Amazon and HBO are the victims here. They were the
| ones harmed and deceived.
| yunohn wrote:
| Apple does this too - they set wildly low payable rates and
| then get surprised when Foxconn grinds their workers to dust.
| gruez wrote:
| What makes you think that if apple paid "fair" prices, that
| it won't get siphoned off to pay management/shareholders?
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| We can't know that, but we can know that if they pay
| unfair prices the workers are _definitely_ not getting
| paid or treated appropriately.
| yunohn wrote:
| Well, like I said, Apple is known for having hardline
| stances with their partners - it could easily be mandated
| that employee wages need to be 2X$ or whatever.
|
| Though, Apple has the exact same issue you claim Foxconn
| might have - funneling value to shareholders over
| laborers.
| codedokode wrote:
| If Apple was willing to pay fair prices, they would do
| the work in a country with strong laws and strong unions
| not allowing such things to happen.
| constantcrying wrote:
| It _is_ a defense. Even in a court of law not knowing about
| something can potentially protect you from punishment.
|
| It is just a part of the nature of outsourcing. Your supplier
| might just choose to outsource himself and have the work done
| by companies you couldn't possibly work with. For a digital
| good this is extremely hard to monitor. How would a
| Californian studio possibly know what company their supplier
| outsources to?
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Don't outsource.
|
| If you outsource, have boots on the ground ensuring working
| conditions and no re outsourcing.
|
| Pick one. Pretty straightforward.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Boots on the ground isn't enough. Even in a company where
| everyone is physically at the same location overseeing
| who does what work is near impossible for any large scale
| projects.
|
| But yes, please let management know that outsource is
| only attractive on paper. Every experience I have had
| with it is has been bad. The communication gap is just so
| much larger and your ability to oversee what gets done
| and how it gets done just evaporates. The ethical/legal
| problem is just one result of that, but even without it
| outsourcing often just costs far more in hidden expenses.
| godelski wrote:
| > Don't outsource.
|
| If this were codified into law I would suspect that it
| would quickly lead to monopolization. I can't imagine how
| the world would work without contractors. Imagine if
| Apple had to operate the mines, build the machines to
| mine the materials, to build the machines to build those
| machines, build the silicon foundry, and all the things
| along from dirt in the ground to the iPhone. Boy, you'd
| get nothing done. Because that's the world with no
| "outsourcing." It is too broad of a word.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Sure, having suppliers is completely inevitable for any
| company.
|
| "We only do X" is one of the best tools to manage
| complexity.
|
| I think what the other poster is referring to is
| _specifically_ the practice of companies to have work
| done by workers in areas of the world where labor is
| cheap. That particular practice is something very
| different than e.g. buying chips from a foundry.
| Specifically buying parts from q supplier involves very
| little management, outsourcing work means you have to
| actively involved in the management of the offshore
| labor.
| godelski wrote:
| > I think what the other poster is referring to is
| specifically the practice of companies to have work done
| by workers in areas of the world where labor is cheap.
|
| Sure, but part of what I wanted to (albeit indirectly)
| convey is the difficulty of creating a meaningful rule
| about this. Even if you locked work within a country's
| borders (I imagine this would have terrible consequences
| too), this concept scales.
|
| I understand the complaint, but I think we need to also
| recognize the complexity of the issue if we're to do
| anything meaningful about it. Trivializing it will get us
| nowhere and often leads to bad laws that get more abused
| than the original ones.
| constantcrying wrote:
| I agree, you actually always have to work with other
| companies. The alternative is not possible.
|
| In general it is very easy and safe to work with
| companies in the same country as you, as they are bound
| by identical laws to you and litigation and control is
| relatively easy. They also can't legally re-outsource to
| companies you can't outsource to. Similar things are true
| if the company is in a broadly aligned country. E.g. the
| US and Germany.
|
| The further away, physically, ideologically,
| linguistically and legally away the country of the other
| company is the worse it becomes and the harder it is to
| effectively control them.
| godelski wrote:
| > The further away
|
| Yeah, I agree that this is definitely a weighting factor.
| But neither do I think it is good to return to
| isolationism. Globalism, despite its many flaws, has
| clearly contributed to the long peace. Encourages
| negotiations at the table rather than on the battlefield
| given that in the end, wars are primarily economically
| driven. Better to destroy economies than people, even if
| the former can indirectly result in the latter. (wish
| there were better solutions and a larger gain, but that's
| a whole other conversation fraught with far more
| complexity)
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| What direct evidence exists to say that globalism clearly
| contribute to long peace? As far as I know, there is only
| proof of globalism failing to contribute to peace, where
| invading nations continue their invasions even after
| heavy sanctions.
| vkou wrote:
| I'm sure you buy all sorts of products that are built using
| conflict minerals, slave labour, etc.
|
| Is your ignorance a defense? Should we hold you accountable
| for the entire supply chain that goes into what you consume?
|
| Or can we just say that you should put in a _reasonable_
| amount of effort towards avoiding this (with reasonable being
| defined by the legislature and the judiciary)?
| exhilaration wrote:
| But that's the most interesting part of the article - that
| Amazon and HBO projects are being worked on by NORTH KOREAN
| workers!!! I totally agree with the HN headline and I'm glad it
| got me to click and read the entire article.
| karaterobot wrote:
| If the headline is factually wrong, it doesn't matter whether
| you agree with it or not.
| zdw wrote:
| Original title "buried the lede" and was too long for HN,
| so I edited it.
|
| It may be useful to see how others linked to this news -
| the original place I found this was at Engadget, which had
| this title: "Some Amazon and Max cartoons may have been
| partially animated in North Korea"
| https://www.engadget.com/some-amazon-and-max-cartoons-may-
| ha...
|
| Which linked to Reuters: "North Koreans may have helped
| create Western cartoons, report says" :
| https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreans-
| may...
|
| I linked the original report, which makes no mention of
| animation, but is the obvious focus of the article. The
| point isn't who did the outsourcing, but what was done,
| IMO.
|
| The length limit on HN titles sometimes makes nuance
| difficult - maybe I should have added "may have been
| outsourced" instead. I was not going for
| clickbait/misrepresentation.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| But it's not. The original headline was just vague, and HN
| tends to ignore headlines that are too abstract or vague.
| x0x0 wrote:
| It's also wild that it somehow makes financial sense to
| outsource a core input into your product. A company that
| makes animations outsourcing animation makes as much sense to
| me as a software company outsourcing engineering. Though we
| do have a plane company that outsources making planes, but
| that's going some sort of way right now...
| laborcontract wrote:
| To be fair, the outsourced tasks seem to be for edits, and
| not for original artwork.
|
| There's a lot you can hide with outsourced software
| engineering. With animation it's all on display.
| bathtub365 wrote:
| Animation has been outsourced for decades, typically with
| in-house artists providing the key frames and outsourced
| animators doing the "in between" frames.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation
| dannyphantom wrote:
| Oooh I can try tackling a bit of this (I'll try not to
| ramble... )
|
| But anyway studios have been outsourcing animation work to
| Asian countries for a while now.
|
| You _might_ have seen some of the work product from one of
| the larger Japanese animation studios: TMS Enterainment who
| has worked on things like Batman: The Animated Series,
| Batman Beyond, The New Batman Adventures in addition to
| shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and Transformers in the
| 80-90s.
|
| Some more recent(ish) examples are Cartoon Network
| outsourcing the animation for Steven Universe to Rough
| Draft Korea located South Korea and Nickelodeon outsourced
| some of the work for Korra to a Japanese company called
| Pierrot.
|
| I'm just rambling at this point so I'm going to just leave
| a few links below that can do a better job of illustrating
| than I'm able to.
|
| Wikipedia, Outsourcing of Animation:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing_of_animation
|
| [DCAU Fandom Wiki, TMS Entertainment:
| https://dcau.fandom.com/wiki/TMS_Entertainment,_Ltd.
|
| Reddit thread, Stylistic differences between two studios: h
| ttps://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/1m4wbn/st
| ...
|
| AnimeNewsNetwork, American animation outsourced to Japan
| (2015): https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-11-
| 02/.94920
| constantcrying wrote:
| I see nothing wrong with the headline. It accurately reflects
| what happened.
|
| That it was unintentional should be quite obvious, anything
| else would have been a major scandal.
| rangerelf wrote:
| It doesn't matter if it was intentional or not, the headline
| represents exactly what happened.
| bcherry wrote:
| there's a difference between "click bait" (a misleading title
| specifically crafted to drive instinctual interest but which is
| not an accurate summation of the content) and titles accurately
| describing something truly interesting or surprising with more
| details inside. This is a case of the latter
|
| (and whatever the opposite of "click bait" is, that's how I'd
| describe the original title!)
| vajrabum wrote:
| @dang looks like we have a troll who's creating multiple
| accounts.
| pronoiac wrote:
| @'s don't do anything here. I've emailed the mods.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| They were animating stuff? For money? The thing that hits me the
| most about this, I think, is the depravity of it all.
| tchbnl wrote:
| The issue is the money is piped into the NK regime. The problem
| isn't that a North Korean did the work, but that it was done by
| a state-owned firm.
| darkwater wrote:
| > but among those that were not VPN-related was an IP address in
| Spain and three in China
|
| I wonder if the IP in Spain was related to Alejandro Cao de Benos
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Cao_de_Ben%C3%B3s
| duxup wrote:
| The few times I was involved in some outsourcing the outsourcing
| company was contractually obliged to actually be the one doing
| the work. Not that folks might not cheat and get away with it,
| but there were financial implications and a somewhat close
| working relationship that meant that ... it would have been hard
| to fake.
|
| In this case does the original company just not care at all?
| constantcrying wrote:
| I would be surprised if the same wasn't the case here. Any half
| competent legal department would at least have it be part of
| their contract that the subcontractor can't outsource to
| parties with whom the contracting party is not allowed to
| cooperate.
|
| But how do you verify who does the work? Contracts are nice and
| all, but how do you make sure they are followed?
| iamleppert wrote:
| This more than anything says why we need SORA AI now, and to
| replace these animators with AI. We cannot be allow to have
| reputable US firms engaging with a foreign adversary. Replacing
| these workers with AI should do the trick in this compliance
| snafu.
| dangerboysteve wrote:
| Let's not forget the use of pirated software to produce the
| animations.
| tumsfestival wrote:
| Oh no, not the pirated software!!
| constantcrying wrote:
| If you are outsourcing over the entire globe things like this
| tend to happen. There is very little you can actually do to
| verify how the work you require really gets done, especially if
| the format is purely digital and there is no physical process you
| could monitor.
|
| Companies building things in China have been caught in that trap
| multiple times and somewhere down the line the work was allegedly
| done by highly mistreated populations, potentially in slave like
| conditions. Certainly no company would want this to happen, as it
| is obviously a major PR disaster, but it is just very hard to
| oversee.
| iaaan wrote:
| It's really easy though, actually, isn't it? Just don't toss
| problems over the fence to China. i.e. don't outsource things.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Sure. You can avoid all of this by doing the work in house or
| even just working with companies bound by the same laws as
| you are. Obviously management doesn't see it your way though.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| that is indeed an easy solution, but that doesn't mean it is
| a good solution, or even better than no solution.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| Why is the USA sanctioning the citizens of North Korea?
|
| It's not like theyre happy about a dictator running the country
| doing international crazy stuff and oppressing them.
|
| I feel like we should be supporting any capitalistic effort they
| make so that they can build up resources to combat their dictator
| from within.
| VS1999 wrote:
| This is normal behavior. We feed our allies and starve our
| enemies.
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