CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Sony's in a tough spot.

Someone, somewhere doesn't want Americans to see "The Interview," reputedly a silly movie about a couple of bumblers assigned to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Whoever it was hacked Sony's databases, made public all sorts of embarrassing inside dope from the studio's electronic files and followed that up with the threat that if its demands regarding the movie weren't met, anyone in or even near a theater showing it was at risk of a violent end.

The next sound we heard was a series of thumps as lawyers for theater chains fainted dead away. The studio capitulated quickly, announcing that "The Interview" would not be released. A lot of damage had been done to Sony, though, as Twitter posters and gossip purveyors publicly dished the sizable mound of dirt the hackers had made available.

Sony's not out of the woods yet, either. Now someone else, somewhere else wants the whole world to see "The Interview" and claims also to have hacked Sony's archives. Release the movie, this new threat says, or we'll release our dirt pile.

Advice to Sony: Let 'er rip. If your situation is going to get worse, either way, you might as well make your stand on a worthy principle: You had every right to make the film. You have every right to show it, too, and to profit from it. Don't stop at a few "select" theaters — the Christmas Day release plan as of Tuesday, which includes Tower City Cinemas in Cleveland. Get the film into the big chains. Promote the daylights out of it.

Advice to theater chains: Show the film. Don't be intimidated by bluffing nerds; North Korean troops aren't going to parachute in to shoot up your theaters. Do strengthen your computer security; that's where the nerds can do you some damage.

Advice to Americans with disposable income: Buy a ticket. If the movie stinks, feel free to leave before it's over. If you stay long enough to see that part where — spoiler alert — Kim is dispatched to eternal torment, applaud vigorously. Cheer. Stomp. (It's just a movie. No actual pipsqueak foreign dictators were harmed in the making of this film.)

The key words there are "feel free." Not "feel worried," "feel sad" or "feel intimidated."

Pipsqueak foreign dictators may be able to tell the poor unfortunates who live under their thumbs what to watch and what not to, but they don't have any standing to boss Americans around.

Advice to theater-goers: On the extremely remote chance that something bad happens at the theater, including the possibility that some freelance idiot (as in, not a North Korean operative) decides to get his name in the paper by doing some damage, don't sue the studio, the theater chain, the popcorn vendor, etc. If you go to see "The Interview," you are enlisting as a freedom fighter and, as the song says, freedom isn't free. Chances are it won't cost you more than $8 in this case, but you can never know for sure.

In a sense, you'll be buying a plush seat (with cup holder) on what may well be the front lines of the Korean War, which has been on break for 61 years but is technically still going on. Sony, the theater, the popcorn vendor and you are all on the same side. You don't sue your own side when things go sour.

It should be noted — and then summarily dismissed — that we're not really sure who is behind the threats intended to suppress "The Interview." There's only one country that could possibly get worked up about it and only one guy in charge of that country. So, yeah, North Korea.

It should also be noted that for a nine-hour stretch this week, Kim's failed state had an Internet to match. Someone, somewhere revoked Kim's Facebook privileges — and everything else.

I really want to think it was the United States government. Maybe reminding North Korea of its Hermit Kingdom roots by taking it offline was the beginning of that "proportional" response President Barack Obama promised the other day. If so, I hope he'll speak up about it.

The Internet is a great boon to mankind. It's digital freedom. People who are scared of freedom shouldn't be permitted to use it to their advantage. If they try, they should be stopped and punished, one way or another.

Defending freedom is a government job, especially here in the United States, where government was founded with the express goal of making people free and keeping them that way.

But claiming freedom and exercising it is an individual job. That's why Sony needs to get that film out there where people can see it. That's why theaters need to show it. That's why people need to plunk down good money to watch it. It isn't just a movie anymore. It's a cause. It stands for something much larger than itself.

That's the noble, uplifting part of all of this. Now, here's the worrisome part:

Sony is caught between blackmailers with opposing goals. No matter how this ends, someone will be in a position to say that he bent a huge corporation to his own desires. This sort of thing will happen again because it worked once.

Businesses are going to have to take cyber security far more seriously than they have up until now. So are their customers.

Business databases have been the targets of relatively petty thieves for years. Now, those databases are being attacked in ways that resemble acts of war, in that they seek to deprive people of the freedoms their governments are sworn to protect.

That leaves the U.S. government with decisions to make: What can and should it do to respond to an attack on a private business? What about an attack on a multinational corporation, or a business that is based elsewhere but provides critical products or services here? When and how should the Internet itself be used as a weapon?

Newt Gingrich said the other day that in the Sony incident, the United States had lost its first cyberwar. That assessment seems premature, but there's no doubt whatsoever that Sony is a serious casualty and that the constitutionally protected rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, as well as the freedom to conduct lawful commerce, are all under direct attack by people who will almost certainly turn out to be agents of a foreign power.

We all have an obligation to fight back.

O'Brien is The Plain Dealer's deputy editorial page editor.