"Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country," Google’s SVP Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in a blog post on Wednesday. "We’re eager to help — though given everything that’s happened, the security implications were very much at the front of our minds."
Starting at 10 a.m. PST in the United States on Wednesday, the movie will be available for purchase or rent on Google Play, YouTube Movies and through Xbox video.
Drummond said that last week, Sony had contacted numerous companies asking to screen "The Interview" online and after considering "security implications" the company decided to move forward with screening the film.
The FBI claims that North Korea was behind the cyber-attack on Sony, but Pyongyang has denied the claim. North Korea has also offered to take part in a joint investigation into the Sony incident along with the United States warning that the US would face serious consequences if they refused to participate in the investigation.
The United States continues to blame Pyongyang for the Sony hack and says that North Korea should compensate the company for its damages resulting from the leak of salary figures, credit card numbers, passwords and other valuable data.
