Sunday on social media saw an enigmatic post from Skybound Entertainment in regards to Invincible animation being found on servers in North Korea, which CNN has now reported on.
“To our fans: Skybound has been made aware of an unconfirmed report concerning a cloud storage server connected to a North Korean IP address. This server supposedly contains an Invincible animation sketch. Our official statement follows,” tweeted the official Skybound account on Sunday, as Skybound owns Invincible via Robert Kirkman, who is the chairman of the company.
The tweet continues, “We do not work with North Korean companies, or any affiliated entities, and have no knowledge of any North Korean companies working on our animation. Our policies strictly prohibit any subcontracting to any third-party without our express prior written consent, which, in this case, was neither sought nor granted. We also mandate that all our service providers fully comply with all applicable rules and regulations and prohibit disclosures of materials by our service providers to third parties.”
The tweet adds, “Skybound Entertainment takes these allegations seriously and has initiated a thorough internal review to verify and rectify any potential issues. We have also notified the proper authorities and are cooperating with all appropriate bodies.”
To our fans: Skybound has been made aware of an unconfirmed report concerning a cloud storage server connected to a North Korean IP address. This server supposedly contains an Invincible animation sketch. Our official statement follows.
— Skybound Entertainment (@Skybound) April 21, 2024
We do not work with North Korean…
U.S. Studios may have unknowingly outsourced work to North Korea
Fans have been questioning what the tweet is about, and now CNN has published its report that goes over how animation from U.S. companies have been found on North Korean servers.
We can guess that since CNN contacted Skybound for a response to their article, that Skybound got ahead of the article and posted a response on social media before the article was published.
The article at CNN goes over how a Boston-based cyber-sleuth discovered animation from American companies on North Korean servers, as Nick Roy regularly checks the North Korean internet as a hobby.
To be clear, it is pointed out that Skybound and other American companies likely had no idea North Korea was potentially working on Invincible or other animated projects.
What looks to have happened is that whatever animation studio might have been working on the projects in question, might have out-sourced work to a third party, such as China and/or North Korea.
The report goes over how China will outsource work to North Korea and how North Korean IT workers will pretend to be other workers, so they can send money back home to North Korea.
Due to sanctions, it’s against the the law for American companies to work with North Korea.
Animation is said to be big in North Korea and so are North Korean comics which are said to be popular in China.
Regarding the Invincible animation found, it’s said to be a sketch or sketches that are in Chinese, which suggests that an animation company working on Invincible outsourced work to China who then may have outsourced it to North Korea or were unknowingly North Korean workers in China.
The article also says Skybound is taking the matter very seriously and investigating on their own and that Skybound also doesn’t work with Chinese companies.
Invincible airs on Prime Video with Season 1 and 2 now available.
