Game of Thrones director sees piracy as a good thing

I'm surprised he didn't mention the possibility of the downloaded episodes increasing the sales of DVD boxsets... That's a common trend amongst music, though I dunno if it offsets the loss of people being able to get the music for free who would have paid for it otherwise if they had no other option.

Of course, trying to figure out how much of that makes up the music pirating population compared to folks who'd never buy it anyway and those who wind up buying tons of music after essentially sampling/demoing it is a feat best left for the statistical gods.

 

Its quite simple, in most parts of the world there is no sensible alternative to downloading series.

IMHO if these companies are smart they would offer downloadable, non DRM, high quality episodes for 1 euro 24 ~ 48 hours after airing.

Now ofcourse, they will tell you this is way too cheap and they cant earn money that way. Besides that this just isn't true, in a world where you can get a drm free, high quality file including subs in often less than 24 hours after airing people are just not going to pay the kind of money these companies would like to see.

At 1 euro it's so cheap that I think most people won't mind. 1 euro is easily spent, 2.50, 5 or even more and people will start thinking if its worth it or not first and probably come to the conclusion that it isnt if they can download it with bittorent for free or pay a couple of euros a month for usenet access.

At 1 euro an episode they could have made over 80 million euros if those download numbers are correct.

 

Keep in mind HBO is a premium service and people are paying $10+ a month for HBO. Most TV shows on basic cable channels can be downloaded for free within a week of airing.

The problem with DRM free is they would suggest you might as well give them away, why pay $1 when you can get the same item for free. HBO has always had a high opinion of the value of their service.

 

Here's a quote from Time Warner's (parent company of HBO) CEO: “Basically, we’ve been dealing with this issue for years with HBO, literally 20, 30 years, where people have always been running wires down on the back of apartment buildings and sharing with their neighbors,” he said. “Our experience is, it all leads to more penetration, more paying subs, more health for HBO, less reliance on having to do paid advertising… If you go around the world, I think you’re right, Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world. Well, you know, that’s better than an Emmy.”

 

That's an awesome last sentence and very true.

 

Agreed!