Warner Bros. CEO on Sony Hack: 'We ... Should Have Done More for Sony' (Video)

When the Sony hack fiasco erupted late last year, rival studios didn’t rally around Sony. And that was a mistake, Warner Bros. Entertainment CEO Kevin Tsujihara admitted at the Code/Media conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, Calif., on Wednesday.

“We could have and should have done more for Michael and for Sony,” Tsujihara said, referring to Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton.

A number of factors kept Tsujihara and Warner Bros. from showing public support at the time, the executive said, including the speed at which the scandal erupted, the involvement of lawyers and the fear that a show of support could be twisted to being perceived as a self-serving act.

Even so, as my Re/code colleague Dawn Chmielewski previously reported, Sony’s big studio competitors actually did the opposite of supporting the studio, and instead tried to push “The Interview” out of theaters, fearing that patrons would stay home altogether after hackers threatened theatergoers’ safety.

The Seth Rogen comedy, a scathing satire of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was the reason that hackers acting on behalf of North Korea infiltrated Sony’s systems. Tsujihara denied that Sony’s competitors used the hack to its advantage when Peter Kafka asked him about it onstage.

Tsujihara did say that Warner Bros. is taking new internal precautions in the wake of the attack, but didn’t go into detail.

Here’s a clip from the conversation:

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via