Slashdot Mirror
Angry Birds Boss Credits Piracy For Popularity Boost
An anonymous reader writes "Mikael Hed is the CEO of Rovio Mobile, the company behind popular mobile puzzle game Angry Birds. At the Midem conference Monday, Hed had some interesting things to say about how piracy has affected the gaming industry, and Rovio's games in particular: '"We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy." Hed explained that Rovio sees it as "futile" to pursue pirates through the courts, except in cases where it feels the products they are selling are harmful to the Angry Birds brand, or ripping off its fans. When that's not the case, Rovio sees it as a way to attract more fans, even if it is not making money from the products. "Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day." ... "We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have," he said. "If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow."'"
Rovio Mobile indicted for taking part in the Mega Upload conspiracy.
Look! It's a businessman that understands "Don't shit where you eat."
Piracy is one of the greatest forms of advertising. In some businesses, it's called "word of mouth". Growing up, many of the products I was introduced to, and subsequently became loyal customers of, was thanks to "piracy" of one sort or another. Back then, nobody saw it as a bad thing. The rule of thumb was copy all that you want as long as you don't try to make a profit from it or pass it off as your own.
When I was younger and still listened to mainstream music, my favorite band was Metallica. I heard them on the radio a few times, but I didn't know who they were. That is, until one of my friends loaned me a cassette tape. Then, a series of them. I was hooked. I bought every CD I could find (even though I already had the tapes), and I tuned into every radio station that played them. From what I understand, they owe a lot of their success to piracy. It's a shame that they attacked Napster. By the way, has anybody heard anything from them lately? I wonder how their anti-piracy campaign is working?
It wasn't just music. Everything from software and video games to free food came along my way, and I often rewarded the company with my business. I was always more loyal to companies that treated me like I was a prize to be one, and not a resource to be manipulated. I hope that the media companies realize this before we lose too many of our rights. As for me, I've already given up on them.
There are 10 commandments: 01)Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God 10)Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.Matt22:34-40
We took something from the music industry
Incoming lawsuit?
Really? A company that sells their product for a dollar finds it's uneconomical to drag pirates into court? Besides, it's easy for people to buy Angry Birds since it's easily searchable in the AppStore, and most people would find it way more trouble than it's worth to try to pirate it and save themselves a few bucks. They have a huge convenience advantage over pirates.
Photoshop anyone?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
...Angry Birds brand, or ripping off its fans.
Because Rovio brought us the first of this wonderful concept of projectile-tower crushing. No ripping off there. Never been done. Glad people pay for it. **puts on old and bitter smug-cap, goes back to Crush the Castle 3**
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Paulo Coelho would tend to agree with them, even taking it a step further. He's joined up with Pirate Bay as part of an arts promotion program.
My friend downloaded a cracked and pirated copy of angry birds, and he liked it so much (as did his wife) that they both purchased the full copy of the game. He sent it to me, and I purchased it also (having tried the free version and went Meh...) but probably would not have, had I not gotten a chance to see all of the levels, and really appreciate the game!
Probably 75 percent of the games that I have ever purchased, I have played a pirated version first not the demo. Especially when you can get all of the levels or vehicles unlocked and use all of the different weapons and just give it a good run through to be sure it's really worth having.
If it's not worth buying, it's not worth keeping the pirated version around either!
Cheers:)
Even though they would probably never admit it, IMHO this is how Windows and MS Office got so popular.
I do not believe MS would not be able to come with a better way of protecting against illegal copying. It is just that allowing people to copy windows without much effort created a very nice near-monopoly on OS for them.
I can't believe this... If this really is true and not some 'honeypot' scheme, then I think I have a company I feel I can believe in.
David 'Volk' Mc. Itazura!
They stole the idea from a bunch of flash games without innovating and are now raking in unbelievable profits on games, toys, advertising, etc. What do they care if someone pirates something they put barely any effort into?
..one of the "pirated" products was a fucking theme park.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
... he would be filthy rich - and his offspring will be forever filthy rich as well, thanks to our "perpetual copyright laws"
Unfortunately, he ain't
That is why Beethoven died dirt poor
But on the other hand, the world is far more richer because no one could monopolize the wonderful music of Beethoven
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
...which is why they supplied keys for their OSes separately to the media. Why they went for hooky VLKs and those distributing them instead of the end users using them. Establish the user base and lock them in, when you get the planned obsolescence running properly, as they have now, then you've got a captive audience and every fucking penny they will ever earn for the rest of their lives.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy
This is not a surprise, the two companies don't see piracy from the same angle.
The Music industry and their executives come from this ancient business model where people have to purchase physical and palpable objects, like potatoes or condoms ; they had then to - slowly and awkwardly - adapt to the new digital technologies.
Rovio on the other hand is a young enterprise having every staff member fully immersed in the digital world from day one. Definitely not the same mentality.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I think the validity of this viewpoint depends on just how many people will end up purchasing after pirating. If too many people decide they'll be the pirates and let someone else be the purchaser, then the model breaks done. Making purchasing easy and of reasonable perceived value will help, much like Apple did for digital music sales (which the music publishers still seem to be unhappy about, the ungrateful bastards).
Have you ever questioned about why Microsoft doesn't block (almost totally disable) your computer when Windows detects your copy as illegal?, something like disabling the login to the system until the user enters a valid key, it only displays a message: "your copy of windows is illegal ...", it is not convenient for them to disable the operating system tools
That's why I always use the bathroom in the restaurant next door.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
That's why MS DOS, Windows, etc did so well back in the 90's. All you needed to clone a DOS system was a floppy disk. I don't know if I ever saw legitimate MS install media. Of course, once they got well-established, they started cracking down...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
In before someone justifies their piracy by saying they help with advertising.
Oh wait, only six posts as I type this and already too late.
I'm going to go ahead and abandon modding on this article, because I can't believe no one has called you on this crap.
Specifically, TFS and TFA both defend piracy by saying they help with advertising, specifically quoting people who are (massively successful) content creators, you know, the folks who are financially impacted by piracy...
Look, I can see both sides of the argument (well, in detail it's more than 2) about piracy, I can see how they both have valid points, and am unwilling to come down firmly on either side.
What I can't support is someone who is so much a zealot that they resort to this sort of attack by ignoring basic facts.
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.
I really wanted to watch Van Helsing the other day. I just wanted to watch it, not own it. I've recently had a cleanse and sold all my DVDs to a second hand store, only keeping my wild life documentary Blu-Rays as I got a bit fed up with having hundreds of DVDs cluttering up the flat.
After scouting around, on Amazon it is about £8 for the Van Helsing Blu-Ray, on iTunes it is about £8 to buy/download forever Van Helsing.
I'm not a fan of buying movies to keep like that, I just wanted to watch it once, not keep it on a HDD for the rest of my life, i figured to me it's worth £1 to download/stream and view once.
Lovefilms do PPV at £3.49 for most films, Van Helsing wasn't available and that's more than I wanted to pay anyway. They also do unlimited streaming for £5pm.
Netflix do unlimited streaming for £6pm but their site didn't seem to show Van Helsing and there wasn't a one off option.
iTunes only lets you buy, not one off stream and that's the same price as the Blu-Ray.
BitTorrent on the other hand had it readily available for free, but I don't pirate so watched my copy of Planet Earth instead.
Am I unreasonable in wanting to watch once an 8 year old film that had a budget of $160 million and broke $300 million in the box office for £1?
Is it unreasonable to not want to pay monthly subscriptions to a service that doesn't have the film I want to watch anyway which forces me to watch more films than I want in order to get value for my money?
Is it me that's broken, or their business model?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Could you please explain how you stole a car without the owner losing it?
You know, like the digital copies this article is about.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I think it's you that is broken if you can bare to watch movie like Van Helsing even once.
And the best part is - everyone is stealing the same car! Everyone brings a replicator to just outside the dealership, scans the car inside and the replicator produces a new car In other news, the oil industry is suing everybody and is trying to make replicators illegal because they can create gasoline for free so nobody is buying real gasoline, just using the replicated one.
They have to set a price, and there will always be people who will consider it reasonable, and those who don't. That doesn't mean their business model is broken, and doesn't mean the person who isn't willing to pay is broken either.
Checking the Android App store, I see it's available for $2.99USD, or about £1.90. But since you're using that funny-money, that probably means you're in one of those OTHER countries, where studios get horribly poor royalty rates, and so charge considerably more in general. I hardly care, but there's probably some regulation issue that would need to be addressed to get the UK price lower, and in-line with the US pricing.
But, I certainly don't understand the mindset of "I'm not a fan of buying movies to keep", so maybe you are broken.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"We took something from the music industry, .."
See you in court!
- RIAA
Rovio's attitude stinks, because it just runs on the same lines as all appstore economics.
Rovio have made millions, but they're the exception -- most mobile apps get few or no sales. The profits in mobile apps, spread across all writers, would amount to a pretty pitiful wage. Losses to lower-order app developers mean loss of (already rubbish) income. Losses to Rovio mean little or nothing, considering the scale they're on.
Advertising? Well, three things:
1) It's well established that piracy tends to favour known and popular materials over unknown and unpopular, in all media. It therefore serves to further entrench the established players -- so it's great for Rovio, not much use for John A B Smith Software.
2) The entrenched players in mobile apps are supported by their appstore ratings, compiled from legal downloads. Even 100,000,000 downloads of a pirated game wouldn't get it above Angry Birds in the appstore charts, so it wouldn't get commercial discovery and success.
3) Angry Birds is a brand, and the toys and cartoons make lots of money. Most apps aren't merchandisable. PocketPlayPool -- are you going to market branded balls? GTCarsXXVII -- the manufacturers retain all likeness rights to their own models, so there's nothing to market. Same goes for EAProSportofchoice20xx and sports personalities/teams.
So what Rovio is supporting is market conditions that favour their particular product, which is very different from market conditions that ensure a robust and healthy competitive environment, or that ensure innovation and development.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Ignoring what facts? That people would use the article to justify piracy?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The music industry cries foul about file sharing, but you can find almost any music track on Youtube.
Music execs are finally getting wise to the benefits of try-before-you-buy. Artists certainly have been for a while.
What exactly is the difference between listening to a new album - or even watching full videos - on Youtube, and downloading them from peers to listen to before buying? They know it increases sales, yet insist on draconian measures to the contrary. I smell a rat.
I listen to a lot of stuff. When I find something that really excites me I want to buy it. I want to support the artist(s). It makes me feel good to give them direct feedback that what they've created is worthwhile and they should do more. It's as much a gift to me as to them. You know, like charity or volunteering, giving is the greatest gift, own reward, etc. Music that makes my heart sing is *really* worth something.
It doesn't matter if they're some kids from the ghetto, or dinosaur rockers who got it together to put out something that cooks like they used to, before they sold out to the cookie cutter pop machine. Even though I can listen to it already.
I'm sure the music industry gets this. It seems to me that these sopa/pipa/acta type laws are more about censorship and consolidation of power than lost sales.
--------
"Do what I say when I tell you to do it."
http://www.talkingtherapies.info
i think that's why we have movie rentals, although they aren't cheap either i must admit (better than cluttering my living room with movies i'll never watch again though)
And the Pirates have won.
Seriously, pirate? When you smell a bottle of shampoo in the store have you pirated the scent?
Of course if you're lathering yourself daily in the cosmetics aisle then there might be a bit of Bluebeard in ya.
It's you who's going to be broken when the MAFIAA finds out you won't pay their protection tax. :P
Blessed be the pigs, for they will inherit the eggs.
You got a flamebait mod because it's a free download in the market. It's OK to take one when the sign says "free, take one".
the pricing is actually inverse.. the more it makes in box office - the MORE they figure they can ask from other markets too, since it's more desirable piece of media.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
"Even though they would probably never admit it..."
Oh it gets admitted all right, even at the very top. Here are just two examples:
As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade. , said back in 1998
"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not" said in 2007
When you have a monopoly the most valuable thing to protect is the monopoly itself. If they are running pirated software, then they are not using the competition.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
You didn't read the TFS and then wrote some snarky, bullshit-dripping nonsense claiming the opposite. That is flamebaiting, hence your moderation. We might be "freeloaders", but you're an idiot.
People don't need the article to justify "piracy" (by which I think you meant copyright infringement) - logic and plenty of case studies do a great job of that already.
Your butthurt over imaginary lost sales (or whatever nonsensical hurt you perceive) is ridiculous.
As with everything it is supply/demand. The fact that you do not want the amount of money they ask for it does not mean that the business model is broken, just that sales is not a win/win situation.
If somebody wants to pay you 1UNITper hour to do work and you demand 8UNIT per hour, that does not mean the system is broken. It mean you have different views on the value it represents.
The fact that they made a shitload of profit should not mean anything to later transactions. You want to pay 1UNIT to see the movie. They want to receive 8UNIT to show it to you.
So at least one of you has to change their perspective to be able to close the deal.
If I go to a pub and they ask me 8UNIT for a drink and I only want to spend 1UNIT, then I will not get the drink, regardless of how well the business is doing.
Perhaps the price they ask is directly related on how well they do. If they would sell at 1UNIT, then they would be broke very soon and not be able to serve me any drinks at all.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Joy riding. (Yeah, I know, gas was used and some tear on the car and tires)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
it's van helsing - you should be paid to watch it.
"Movie rentals" - I don't think Blockbuster DVDs (or UK equivalent) are any cheaper than the streaming solutions than the G.P. mentioned...
When I used to fix PCs full-time, most users had MS Office installed on their PCs, and over 90% of the installs was a pirated version. Not many people wanted to spend $500 on the Office Suite, and Microsoft was fine with that, because at work pretty much everybody was using an officially licensed version.
Let's imagine a hypothetical country with 100 million copies of Office installed, both pirated and non-pirated. Let's assume that home installs and work installs are about equal, with 50 million of each.
Now, Microsoft COULD reduce the cost of full-on Office to $100 to capture a larger portion of the home market. Let's assume (rather optimistically) that every home user rushes out and spends $100. So that would be a total of $100x100M = $10 Billion.
Or MS could charge what the business market will bear, and cheerfully accept home piracy. Now they are making $500x50M = $25 Billion. And a population sufficiently competent at Office that any alternative is met with resistance.
To quote Bill Gates back in 1998: "As long as they're going to steal software, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
It's not a radical idea, it's a proven business model.
And here comes Torrents and P2P networks into play. They have to compete with illegal downloads, if they want to or not. Also they have to compete with other forms of (legal) entertainment, like free games, free Youtube videos, etc.
Like it or not, the value of films are going down and if they don't adjust people will turn to other form of entertainment or to illegal downloads. I didn't bought a DVD in years now, and I see that other people don't buy DVDs or music CDs in stores, too. I see it every time I go to the store, I see all the DVDs are there just like the year before and the year before. People don't buy them because they are just too expensive. It's over 30Euro for a new film, and the older films are for 15Euro. A DVD pack of a series cost about 30 to 60 Euros. That's just way too expensive.
The entertainment industry is blaming it on piracy, but piracy is just a symptom not the disease. The "disease" is that the market have changed with new technology and so the value of the DVDs in the store have gone down. But instead of adjusting like it should be done in a free market, the entertainment industry is changing the laws, but it will not help. The cure would be to lower the prices and make the films available as a download.
AS a personal note: if the older film DVDs were for like 5Euro for sale, I would think about it to buy some. And there would be not racks after racks full with DVDs that don't sell in 10 years in the stores.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
It's you that is broken. Van Helsing is terrible, terrible shit.
My response to this was to do a catalog search of the local public library system. Fifteen Van Helsing DVDs currently not checked out (and a bunch that were checked out, and a few VHS tapes) that I could go get for free for a week.
I have no idea what public libraries are like in the UK (or other countries), but in the US they're often one of the best options for older movies you don't want to purchase.
Okay, you are on the path to the future but you're driving too close to the bramble bushes.
*Sharing* is the greatest form of advertising.
So those things you became loyal to, were because of sharing. You know, like they said to in Kindergarten. Then along came copyrights. (And accusations against sharing homework! Oh cool - did I just find another Copyright angle to play with!?)
So the true evil these corporations are playing is all the fun of Sharing-Marketing but with the power to crush anyone who then becomes a threat!
Semi-related. A while back I engaged in an unfortunately short dialogue with an author about his book. He said he was interested in non traditional marketing. So I sent him a couple of notes asking for him to create a Creative Commons version to replace the usual nasty Copyright message. He declined to reply. So sorry, I can do nothing as long as that double standard is in play.
Painguy, if you're around, I hope you change your mind.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I didn't bought a DVD in years now, and I see that other people don't buy DVDs or music CDs in stores, too. I see it every time I go to the store, I see all the DVDs are there just like the year before and the year before. People don't buy them because they are just too expensive.
You realise that when stores sell products, they restock the shelves right?
We took something from the music industry...
NOBODY takes ANYTHING from the music industry without paying for it! I'm sure they will have RIAA lawyers on there doorstep within a few hours.
...which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans
oh, they were just kidding - the music industry has yet to learn this lesson.
But, I certainly don't understand the mindset of "I'm not a fan of buying movies to keep", so maybe you are broken.
It is easy to understand. He only wants to use stuff, not store it.
you know, if you'd just pirate your movies like a normal person you wouldn't have to see all those silly "you wouldn't steal a car" ads at the start, and then you probably wouldn't think that stealing a car is the same thing as pirating software.
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
I haven't bought a DVD in years.. not because I don't want to... its because there is nothing worth buying...
Except that Rovio is lying, they specifically told XDA to remove modded versions of their games that block ads and remove copyright protection. They did this several times. This is a PR stunt, pure and simple. They are saying "PIRACY IS GOOD" while mumbling under their breath "for our competitors hahaha"
Or, more specifically they are saying piracy is fine as long as their in-app purchases, advertising, and merchandising are all making money. Basically they are saying they aren't concerned about their game being a loss leader. What they have essentially just admitted is their games have little to no value other than as a method to pull a consumer into their other product bases. He's pretending that he's pro-piracy when really they have just shifted strategy towards the MMO "freemium" model.
Some proof: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=838184 (there are several cases of this happening, with XDA mods openly admitting they had been asked not to let these apps out there)
Ok guys, I said I would look into improving Angry Birds and I did All ads are gone, and I optimized the app for better performance! Enjoy everyone, let me know what you think of it!!!! Also, please vote in the poll if you can! Thank you
Thanks to: Creators of the game!
Link down as requested by developers
Piracy may cause publicity, but it doesn't come free. Anyone who says it's free PR is either deluding themselves or an idiot. Was some piracy good for their bottom line? Sure, probably. But they put the kibosh on it when it stopped being PR, and started cutting into ad sales.
FWIW I am not a game dev, so dont bother painting the naysayers as disgruntled devs with inferior products. That's as presumptuous BS as the RIAA saying they lose 100 trillion to piracy.
This.
GP is clearly just a cheapskate who somehow believes he should set his own price for things. Nothing to see here move a long, oh wait the slashtards modded it +5...
"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans."
Here, I'll fix that for him...
"We took something from the INDIE music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans."
...if someone can pirate your goods, sell them to your fans directly, you gain fans, someone else gets money off your work. At least someone made a profit, right? Sorta like buying a movie off the street in China....
I was so happy with my pirated copy of the "full" version of Angry Birds that I bought pirated Angry Birds toys while in China and some Angry Birds t-shirts at a flea market in the USA.
My girlfriend and I have both have jailbroken iPhones and both use Installous, so naturally neither of us have ever paid for any version of Angry Birds. That being said, I have easily spend over $100 on officially licensed Angry birds crap for her from t-shirts to refrigerator magnets to stuffed animals that make noise. None of that ever happens if we don't pirate the game and she doesn't become borderline obsessed with it.
He should be crediting his piracy of Castle Crashers.
So go to the store and rent it, problem solved.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
People seem to be focused on the piracy aspect of the story and I focused on the 'fan' aspect. Something that is going on with Kickstarter as of this week is Order of the Stick, a free online web comic, that has blown away its goals multiple times in the first week of the kickstarter. That is the power of fans. The product is free on the web, but yet fans are tripping over themselves to get out of print material back in stores.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Who's gonna sue Mikeal for copying then ? I'm sure someone will sue him eventually...right ?
...when people call Angry Birds a 'game'
I prefer to call any 'game' played through a phone as a 'trivial distraction'
Piracy is exactly why Microsoft became the dominant PC operating system in the world. When I was in college, none of the students were buying Microsoft Windows. We were all piecing together generic beige boxes and copying someone else's Windows floppy disks to install in on our computers. Heck, there were even some people selling computer parts out of their garage that would throw in pirated Windows disks for free. If memory serves me, this was possible to do throughout the 90's. Pirating Windows onto cheap hardware was the only computer most students could afford. Many software developers and business people today got into Microsoft software precisely for this reason. Rovio is smart to learn from Microsoft's example.
I find the hypocritical statements made by Rovio's CEO very disturbing. I have actually read Rovio cease and desist orders that they have sent to my clients for operating nothing more than a fan site.
On one hand, the CEO claims it is a good thing and they can learn from the music industry, on the other hand, their dogs of war, aka lawyers are hunting down anyone who appears to remotely infringe on their intellectual property.
Honestly, I would not believe in a heartbeat that Rovio's intentions or any more noble than that of SCO Unix. I am sorry, Rovio's CEO is nothing more than a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Shut up and give me the money you owe me. I saw you--you walked into a competitor's store and bought something! If you would've walked into my store and bought something, I would've had more money! That's clearly a lost sale (which is a loss of potential gain).
Why do you enjoy stealing things that I didn't have to begin with from me?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I don't listen to Metallica nor do I want to, But I downloaded as much of their shit as I could find.
only keeping my wild life documentary
You can say 'pr0n' here; come on, you're among friends.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Angry Birds is a great game, and the iOS DRM that ties phones to accounts and prevents jailbreaking combined with a very low purchase cost make it easier to purchase the game than pirate it for the vast majority of users. Given the vast amount of Angry Birds merchandising, the viewpoint of Mikael Hed is not too surprising.
But for digital products that are just not that good, piracy can destroy the profit margin. The experience of Rovio with Angry Birds does not necessarily apply to all digital products.
END COMMUNICATION
... fix the high scores. 9 quintillion points is impossible.
I'm going to go ahead and abandon modding on this article, because I can't believe no one has called you on this crap.
On what crap? The fact that people are STEALING software helps with advertising? YOU don't get to decide how the company runs its business. You can't say "ohhh this will help advertising, so I'll steal it."
Is it me that's broken, or their business model?
There is nothing wrong with the system.
You decided that the movie was worth £1. You couldn't find it at that price point. So your option is NOT watch it, or pay the extra money. You've chosen not to pay the extra money. So then your option is not watch it. You could write to the distributor and complain. But it doesn't mean you can steal it (I'm not saying you did)
you sire, are just plain wrong. In piracy most "theft" is of stuff that the "thief" wouldn't have paid for regardless. Like the entire anthology of pearl jam - VERY FEW would ever buy all of that. They would maybe buy a couple of singles, or maybe a disc. So the loss is no where near as great as the guys calculating it understand. However, the consequence is that the name of what they "stole" becomes better known. Other people hear them listening to this music and *some* of them will want to buy. It is free marketing - and very good marketing too.
Autocad has always been my proof-of-concept in this argument. Prior to 2004 Autocad had plenty of well positioned competitors. There was really no specific reason for them to become the industry leaders; except for piracy. People wanted to learn cad, or just play with "some new software." Nearly NONE of those people would have gone out and chunked $5,000 at those endeavors. But, because Autocad was the easiest to pirate, it become the CAD software that everyone had some experience with. So companies were smart to buy autocad, since all of their potential hires had already trained themselves for free. And it become the name that people associated with the word "drafting" at-large; enabling Autodesk to becomes the graphics powerhouse they are today.
The pure point of the matter is that these industries need to learn how to harness the way things work rather than wasting all of *our* time and money trying to fight it.