Sony does an old japanese 'business tactic' where a large company spawns off all it's little sub-interests into 'companies' that share part of it's name and claim they are independent so when something goes wrong, or they want to shuffle profits around and get huge tax breaks while claiming losses, it's easy, and quasi-legal. If anything goes wrong, they just declare that it was that subsidiaries fault, and not really Sony's, so you can't nail Sony to the wall for it's activities since they claim to have no control or responsibility over what the subsidiaries do, despite their iron grip control.
It's kind of like putting sock puppets on your hands, then mugging some people, and when you get caught, blame it on the sock puppet, and claim innocence for yourself. In an act a attrition you remove the sock puppet and throw it on the ground and turn you back on it. Meanwhile the now defunct sock puppet had already transferred the money from the muggings to another sock puppet, and it is now sitting safely in your wallet, and since you are 'innocent', so it the money and your acquisition of it. After you've successfully flummoxed your accusers, you don yet another sock puppet and continue the charade.
It's apparently related to the stunts involved in Hollywood Accounting where they do such things as rent their own equipment to themselves, charge for the renting, and the depreciation and usage of the equipment, among many other dirty tricks, and claim the movie as a massive loss despite making a large amount of money way beyond their total costs of production and promotion, etc.
A friend who's got some kind of degree in business told me it's kind of like a reverse shell corporation, but honestly, I don't really understand how shell corporations really work.
So, you readers can take it however you like, but don't for a second believe Sony is anything like innocent. (I'm pretty sure that applies to all big corporations, but still...)
