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Who's Pirating Game of Thrones, and Why?
TheGift73 writes "In a few hours a new episode of Game of Thrones will appear on BitTorrent, and a few days later between 3 and 4 million people will download this unofficial release. Statistics gathered by TorrentFreak reveal that more people are downloading the show compared to last year, when it came in as the second most downloaded TV-show of 2011. The number of weekly downloads worldwide is about equal to the estimated viewers on HBO in the U.S., but why? One of the prime reasons for the popularity among pirates is the international delay in airing. In Australia, for example, fans of the show have to wait a week before they can see the latest episode. So it's hardly a surprise that some people are turning to BitTorrent instead. And indeed, if we look at the top countries where Game of Thrones is downloaded, Australia comes out on top with 10.1% of all downloads (based on one episode). But delays are just part of the problem. The fact that the show is only available to those who pay for an HBO subscription doesn't help either."
Oh my goodness, because I live in Australia I have to wait a week before seeing a TV show? How do I manage?
Sometimes I can't quite believe the world we live in.
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
... but I get busy doing something most Sunday nights or forget to watch it, so I usually start the download Monday morning and watch it after work.
It's not pirating if you're time shifting.
But at the moment we have cable data only ($53/month or some-such) and upgrading to cable with HBO would be the better part of another $100 per month.
I seriously look forward to a time when the last-mile people can GTFO and allow me to pay for the specific content that I want to buy.
G.
I wonder why companies like HBO haven't followed suit with other broadcasting companies that air the show a few days later on the internet with commercials. I'd see this as a win-win. The subscribers get it first hand, and everyone else gets it the next day + commercials. The whole week-delay, however, is archaic, and un-excusable.
I'd be happy to pay to download or stream new episodes, but I live outside the US so that is not an option. Considering the pirated version is in 1080p if I want, with no ads and the ability to pause and watch whenever I want just makes it easier.
Stop using scarcity with something that is an unlimited resource.
Stop forcing people to pay for packages. Stop forcing people to pay for networks. Stop using the limited countries mindset, those are artificial political boundaries.
Start making your shows available to everyone world-wide at the same second. Start asking for reasonable prices per episode, not a higher price than buying the DVD box set which you sell after a season is over.
Stop being dumbasses and start being smart. People want to see your shows, they just won't jump through your stupid, mindless 1950's hoops anymore.
The Oatmeal has already demonstrated the problem perfectly.
I don't download Game of Thrones. I watched the first few episodes, saw that it was a soap opera trying to gain legitimacy with a few sword and sorcery components, and gave it up. But one reason to download is that you get to see the film on your terms, at a date and time of your choosing, instead of being locked into a broadcasting schedule. And, no commercials, but the first part is the biggest I think. If these shows were available on demand, instead of trying to force a TV paradigm that's largely dead these days, there may be fewer downloads.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
...But I didn't realize it until I left. Half of all the youtube videos I try to watch are blocked for one reason or another, Hulu, Netflix, and my Amazon Instant accounts were all out of commission, and iTunes was pretty much my last resort to stream content. I hate iTunes. I also hate trying to stream videos I own on Amazon through a proxy. Suddenly BitTorrent looks mighty friendly to a boredom-induced insanity.
While I'm against draconian DRM's, I find blaming the widespread piracy on countries with delay somewhat naive. I'm certain that a large number of people in the US pirate the show - not because they couldn't get it if they wanted to, but because they don't have HBO, and because they just don't wait to wait until it comes out on DVD.
Because we live in a society where everyone deserves everything. And no puppies are killed if you do download it. Solving piracy is pretty simple to do. Instead of threatening to sue, you send them a package with a dead puppy in it.
live in japan so cant get hbo. would buy the dvds but they dont sell them here. would be even more inclined to buy them if they had japanese language and subtitles. but because the show is so interesting to me and i feel its moving too slow for my tastes i have purchased the offical "hbo licensed" books which are just reprints of the normal books. so i guess in a way i'm format shifting which is perfectly legal.
"The fact that the show is only available to those who pay for an HBO subscription doesn't help either"
Can all of the pirating apologists admit that, in this case, this is why most people are bootlegging the show?
In Australia, our TV networks show an incredible amount of greed and disdain in regard to popular TV series from the US. They constantly shift the time and day on which the show airs. They frequently leave gaps of several weeks between episodes (see Big Bang Theory) in order not to compete with other networks which may be launching a new show expected to dominate in the ratings. The more popular the show the more advertisements they pack in - sometimes up to 6 ad breaks in a single 21 minute show! The ad breaks are now so aggressive that they sometimes cut off punch lines (see the Simpsons). And sometimes they even play the damn episodes out of order (Firefly and American Gothic)! And they wonder why we go and download them where we can actually enjoy the show. F you Australian TV networks. You have no-one to blame but yourselves.
Because all I can afford is an internet connection now, but I have every intent of buying the boxed editions with all the goodies.
It's not about having to wait. If the issue were just having to wait then people who now keep saying they would buy DVDs if they only cost $3 would wait the 18 months that it takes for big titles to end up in the clearance bins.
It's about the social network. In our increasingly socially connected world - one which even Microsoft is going to push further by making Windows 8 not about Windows, or the apps, but about sharing everything with your friends - if you don't watch Game of Thrones within, say, 2 weeks, you're already going to be bombarded with spoilers from people you follow on twitter, your friends on facebook, the people in your Google+ circle, etc.
The more people end up on these centralized social networks rather than their own fragmented pieces (Orkut, Hyves, whatever), the more people get exposed to that phenomenon.
You can liken this to some people who watch sports just because that's what their colleagues are likely to talk about at the watercooler, and they don't want to feel left out by not knowing a single thing about what's being referred to.
So if people on your social networks are discussing the latest episode of Game of Thrones, it's not so much the issue that you may only be able to see it (legally) a week later. It's that by the time that week is done, if you were to try talking about it it'd be like saying "The cake is a lie!" and "Bruce Willis is dead people!". Your entire discussion is old news and hardly anybody will want to engage you.
That may not matter to you, particularly. I certainly don't give a flying brick. But to many, many people - it matters.
The media companies would do well to recognize this, but they would rather negotiate large sums with foreign distributors, networks, etc. According to their accountants, any lost sales as a result are insignificant compared to the lost sales, contracts, etc. if they were to try and offer their content directly to any and all who are interested for a low price.
As seen here:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
The oatmeal is as usual correct.
As for me, I live in New Zealand, and the only way to see this is to subscribe to sky tv, but the basic subscription doesn't allow it so then you have to pay more on top to get it. After that you have to be at home at the right time. And then this is some weeks after it initially broadcasts in the states.
I can't buy it or rent it to watch when I want, and by this I mean at a point in time when i'm not out and about doing the chores that daily life requires of me. I also don't want to pay about NZ$100 or so a month just for a subscription so I can watch one tv show a week.
So to quote Gabe Newell... "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". So HBO, provide me with a convenient way to watch your show, and all you need to do is sit back and watch my wallet open. Either that or sit back and watch me open my U***** client
****** (first rule and all)
When it aired internationally before it aired in the US.
HBO needs to open up HBO Go to subscribers. Make it $10 a month or whatever an HBO subscription costs, and they'll be able to pocket more than they get by distributing it via cable companies. I remember HBO used to be distributed by antenna, so it's similar to that.
I haven't watched scheduled television in 4 years. Because the nice pirates have cut them out, I haven't seen any advertising as well. Their business model is as dead as making buggy whips after the automobile revolution.
There's a very good reason Australia is so high on the list.
In Australia we have 1 viable option for traditional pay tv (ie. not streamed content). The way the company's plans are structured though is to gouge as much money as possible out of the consumer. They've taken "packaging" and charging to an unreasonable level. For example if I want just the basic rubbish channels and some sport, I'm up for $92 per month. If I want the channel with game of thrones (Showtime), add $16 per month. If I want the sci fi channel ontop of that, add another $16 a month. So that's before you even get into debates about how long it takes for shows to even be released over here.
Australians aren't idiots, and we've had (and still have today) a considerable history of being charged alot more money for media than most major developed nations. Even for our own media, for example at the moment there's an outcry about an Australian artist "Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know" and that fact that Australians are charged twice as much on Itunes for the single than Americans are.
I'd honestly subscribe to pay tv if itwas offered under reasonable terms, but my family simply can't afford $100+ a month when we have reasonable free-to-air TV available to us. I'm not saying I advocate pirating it either - I'm just saying I understand why many Australians are so disillusioned with the media companies.
In some parts of the world HBO edits out the naughty bits. Sad but true.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
In my country the delay would probably be around a year plus there's a good chance that we'd have to watch a poorly dubbed German version instead of the original English thus there's really no other option except piracy.
as if you wouldn't do the exact same thing in their shoes. You would. You are ill with the capitalist virus as well. Quit being a hypocrite.
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"The fact that the show is only available to those who pay for an HBO subscription doesn't help either."
Ummm, doesn't the person who wrote the synopsis understand that HBO pays to produce the show with the expectation that having the show would increase subscriptions? This statement is nothing more than a contrived excuse to pirate. I could care less if you pirate tv shows/movies, but at least be honest about why. Stop making up excuses and at least have some sort of comprehension of the idea of business models and content creators needing a revenue stream of some sort. You can easily argue that many media companies are grasping on to out of date models and should find new ways to reach modern audiences. I would agree with that.
It is a massive hit because it is a great show with an even better story and the options to watch it while paying for it are poor at best! This is a ridiculously large market that is being totally ignored by the army in suits who cling to what they believe to be the reality of their current income. STEAM - start selling this and the rest of you wake up! I will buy and millions like me will also, do not make a company with minimal rights to distribute a partial list of shows nobody wants that or cares. Take multiple large established download clients and use them ALL with no exclusivity and you win, remember "When you play the game of thrones, either you win or you die". Just saying.
I have been a continuously active subscriber of HBO for at least several years, including all the times during which Game of Thrones aired. I bought the BluRay of season 1 the day it was released and anticipate doing the same for all future seasons. I have access to HBO Go (and like it, especially for the bonus content.)
Yet even with all that, downloading is still the way I like to watch. I watch most TV on computer, for starters. Sometimes the timing works out better for me to watch the captured east coast feed rather than wait a little longer for my west coast airing. And while HBO Go has some nice features, it typically has streaming issues and/or decreased quality during peak demand as top shows are airing, while conversely BitTorrent works great at peak demand (for me at least.) I also enjoy the random access to scenes and replayability, both of which I'll probably make good use of during the next several days since its such a great show.
Anyway, just more examples of why "pirating" is not always primarily or even at all about avoiding paying for content.
The fact that the show is only available to those who pay for an HBO subscription doesn't help either.
Well, pardon HBO for attempting to produce a show to entice you into buying an HBO subscription. Boohoo, I can't buy just Game of Thrones and screw all the other HBO content. Why should I have to pay for the stuff that HBO needs money to produce, when all I want is Game of Thrones.
People who support pirating Game of Thrones on the basis of "I have to buy an HBO subscription to get just the one show I want" are the same short-sighted people believing they should only pay for the Fire Department when their house is on fire.
We know that the cable and satellite companies have a monopolistic ball grab on you. I love some of what you do and would like to give you monies. But the means by which that I am forced to use to get your hard work, (like said assclown franchise locking "service" providers), want me to subscribe to their "packages" so very bad.
I schluffed off their subscriptions, only using their "high speed internet". But they know we'll use it to watch your programs that we download for free like little commie criminals, so they want to "cap" us so we don't download too much! "Cap" has a jaunty ring to it, doesn't it. Like a night cap! But its not for lack of trying!
Creators of television programs, I want to give you monies, shinies, ducats, for your hard work. Let me download it, as soon as its aired. Even if you're soulless overlords like NBC, Syfy, etc., get a cut. Here, I'll address them directly:
Soulless overlords, please let me buy reasonably priced shows I want to watch, a la cart. Take a moment whilst you sit upon throne of blood and bone. Raise your hand, not to cause the death shrieks of cancelled shows we like, or spew forth more reality show afterbirth from your gaping, fetid maw; allow me to download and keep, episodes of Game of Thrones, Parks and Recreation. I would make offering. No animal burning, though.
Who knows? You might, even then, squint and raise a claw? Hoof? Mandible? to your countless dead eyes and gaze in wonder at the brilliant light of realization: Where there was once a cancelled Firefly or Farscape, they might yet be reborn in a righteous blaze of countless micro transactions the likes of which even Kickstarter.com hasn't seen.
It's an ancient technology, still used by the elderly and the feeble-minded to obtain single-media entertainment and unsourced information in a serial, time-oriented fashion. It's the precursor to the on-demand random access entertainment and information sources we have today.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
My TiVo missed the episode last week, so I grabbed it the next AM and watched it. Was more convenient than waiting for the next airing, and the HBO Go verification process is a PITA for me (I can't think of the last time I bothered logging into my ISP account).
Got me a Notice of Copyright Infringement via email today. For the 5 minutes I was using BT to grab a copy of the ep.
So stupid, no? And by stupid, I mean me. I already pay for HBO. HBO has made an online version available. And yet I still was so lazy I went the BT route when I missed an episode.
My point? Not entirely sure, I guess. But I thought I could at least answer the question posed by the title.
This season is a major let down. Too many sub plots, not enough time. Changing to someone else every 5 minutes has gotten tedious and really isn't making for a smooth flowing story line.
Aussies have to wait a week to see a new show? Well, be glad you're not in dubbed Europe. You may rest assured that you will wait at the very least a YEAR until you get to see a show. That's because next to negotiations, you have to wait until they're done dubbing the show... and dubbing it BADLY. There are a few webpages dedicated to translation bloopers and joke explanations so you finally have a chance to even fathom just WHAT the authors wrote when (not if) you just can't figure out what the fuck's going on.
It's also "only" a year, mind you, if, and only if, a network here decides to pick up the show. In other words, it's one year from the moment they actually WANT to show it. That is not necessarily a year after it's broadcast in its country of origin.
And now think about this: You have internet access, and you use it regularly. There is a show out there that you watch religiously and it depends on suspense and NOT knowing what's going on next week. Think LOST, or worse, Bab5. Now imagine you're watching the first season of Bab5 while everyone on the 'net is discussing the outcome of the Vorlon/Shadow war.
Can you see why people download shows?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You know.. They could just be missing it when it airs on TV.. or maybe it simply doesn't air where they live. Maybe if they made a proper service to watch TV on demand with ads for free or paid monthly instead of trying to blame everything on piracy, there wouldn't be seeing so many people downloading it.
Sorry dudes who are fans of it, but the series doesn't measure up to my expectations.
The books are far far better, and I've already read them. I haven't even touched the comics.
The series? Other than the opening is pitiful. The settings are fake and artificial, the acting sub-par, and the script is only the worst hack job I've ever seen.
I think from all the swooning fans, that HBO must be bribing the critics and brainwashing the fans.
Getting HBO costs $90 in the US. HBO itself may only costs 15, you can't just pay $15 dollars for the service. You must pay the $90 for the cable package that includes it. I don't want cable, I don't own a television that could play it, I do pay for netflix and would pay for HBO too, but they just won't take my money.
I'm in France. I download it from IRC. Because DVD sets are way too expensive for my limited budget, also because if I had to wait for a traditional TV broadcast it would take, dunno like 2 years? What's worse the episodes wouldn't necessarily be broadcast in the right order (episode 6 before 4, happens rarely, but happens) and I would have to listen to the dialogues in French.
I get a nice Xvid.avi of 500 megs, unpack the tarball, check the sfv and merge the rars. Then I grab a subtitles file (in English) and voilà. A side effect is that it helps to familiarize myself with English (yeah, still a lot to do). Need information on airing dates? Thanks Wikipedia.
Do I harm anyone? IMHO, not in the slightest. I couldn't have bought the DVDs anyway, and frankly, I wouldn't have watched it after traditional TVs butchered it. Lost sales? Nope. In fact, I could have been useful as an advertizer as I speak about the series around me but then again, all the other folks torrent it or get it from eDonkey (Hadopi? LOL).
The solution? Get rid of these stupid country restrictions and allow me to watch the series for a few bucks per episode. In other words, offer me the convenience I already have by other means. I love the series and would happilty contribute what I can to get more of it. Just allow me to do so.
I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones. The first 10 minutes were interesting. The rest was unmitigated garbage. I can't imagine breaking even the most stupid of laws just to watch even a minute of this crap.
Since HBO refuses to allow me to view any of their content on any 3rd party service such as iTMS until AFTER the DVD release, I have no other choice.
Sure, it may "technically" be wrong, but since HBO wants to try to fuck me in the ass with HBO Go, which requires servitude to Comcast or other greedy cable operators, I see them as trying to force me to buy products from companies I refuse to buy from -- which is a form of extortion -- and as such need to push back against their greed and cronyism.
I HBO were to remove the requirement for the Comcast ass-rape to access HBO GO and offer it at a reasonable price level (say $50/month) then HBO would get my money. But they've made it clear they are staunchly anti net-neutrality and will not participate in a free and open media market where the consumer can decide how and where to access media content legally.
I download mkv's of all my favorite TV shows via newsgroup or Bittorrent (if that's my only option) even when i could easily watch the show on TV or DVR it. When I download the mkv I've got a copy in my Plex library that I can access anytime. So that's why.
Piracy ends cable TV which ends the shows which ends piracy. Problem solved!
It is not so much the delay, but rather the fact that I can't be bothered scheduling my time around when it airs.
So I download it and watch it when I can, on my tablet on the way to work or on a sunday afternoon sitting in the back yard.
So from the sounds of it, you think waiting a week is reasonable.
How about waiting a month?
How about waiting a couple of months?
How about waiting a year?
Before pirating in Australia, it used to be a regular thing to have to wait up to a year, before you'd get the latest movies and TV. Even then, we'd only get a small fraction of what was in the US.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It is not available in P.R. China through any authorized channel. Even if it were, it would be edited to nothing. The real odd thing to me is that it has recently been featured in the national student newspaper (21'st Century) in a two page spread . The article was mostly an attempt to explain the program and to help students understand the names.
What I found interesting was that there was a full two page article on a program that is not even officially available and contains a significant amount of material that would be censored even if it were available. All that being said, it is not popular with the Chinese students that I know. The plot is too complicated for the male students and it is too violent, and overtly sexual, for the female students. However, it seems to be popular with many of the westerners here; further, considering that the article was written, I expect it is popular with some Chinese, just not here.
1 week * 10 shows a season
No, fans of something can't do all these things. Maybe someone without any feelings could, but normal people can't. Some have it with a tv show, others with Diablo 3 and some with reading slashdot, getting an icecream, going to church, or just seeing their partners. People love things and love is a powerful emotion that will subject you when it comes for you. These things make us humans.
I already own the paper version. I just download it so I have a copy that plays on my other devices.
...and I torrent because I'm rarely at home and torrent downloads are higher quality and easier to put on a big screen than HBO GO, which is often unusable because Comcast's user authentication is hit-or-miss whether or not it will accept my information. No joke, I've had half a dozen comcast calls about this issue. I stopped calling after I saw how good the quality of the torrents were.
My kingdom for a donkey!
No, it's they can't avoid forums until after all episodes of the season have ended, as they are always a week behind the series, and thus unable to participate in the fan discussions of any of the episodes until after the season has completed. Of course by that point the major fan discussion of the prior episodes will be considered old and out of date.
Thus they have a very legitimate complaint.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
no, 1 week lag, then same wait as everyone else.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
Just too many hoops. Most of us younger folk don't subscribe to standard Television service (I know I don't watch TV unless I'm at the bar). If you don't provide a way to watch it online legally, we're going to pirate it. I would probably use NHL Gamecenter, but unfortunately since I live in the viewing area of Root Sports Pittsburgh, it is blacked out. Of course, RSP doesn't have their own online steam, so it forces me to use JTV for everything.
You're describing addiction, not fandom.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
You can get books 1-4 as a set for $20 right now ($10 second hand on ebay).
Yes, and I can buy a set of dominoes for 50c from a garage sale and throw them at cats if want as well. Doesn't mean I want to.
You would get spoilers from people who've read the books in any case. The solution is therefore to have separate forums for those discussing the books, and those discussing the show. Having separate forums for Australian audiences would logically follow.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
The one show that I do download each episode of, six days a week, is MasterChef Australia. Best damn cooking/contest show out there. I torrent it because I live in the US and TEN (the AU network) blocks video from non-AU IP addresses. GoT? I've never seen it, so happy to trade them for it.
Anyway, if you want to watch a good cooking show that isn't 'Housewives' with food, or Gordon Ramsey yelling, catch MasterChef AU. Real people that actually cheer on their competitors.
(Tried MKR but we couldn't get that interested in it, don't know why.)
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Product placement: Joffrey sipping an ice cold Coke while abusing prostitutes? Cersei sneaking off to use her CVS-branded paternity test kit? They're just not being very imaginative about how they market to pirates.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
Forums are already being spoiled by those who have read the books. Applying whatever solution is used to mitigate that problem to the problem of Australians watching on a time delay would be both logical and trivial.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
who, a pirate , why cause the utter crap that is on its at least fun to watch.
ALL THE GARBAGE has reached such a bad state anything is in order....
and until they toned down the nakedness and sicko bits i was calling it
GAME of PRON
What kind of question is this? Why do people want to watch a series that isn't available any other way than through the internet?
DuuuUUUUHHHH!!! What the fuck dumbass question is that? The same thing happens with Doctor Who. That shit is an entire season behind in America.
Why do we download it? Because I can't wait 6 fucking months for American boradcasters to find thei rtiny cocks with both hand.
So fuck them and fuck you too.
Piracy is the great equalizer, just like Colt. So eat a dick and die.
I've offered to pay extra for their internet based service. Unfortunately, it's simply not available without buying cable, which is something I won't do. I have no desire to have cable when my Roku and Apple Tv do a better job for a fraction of the price. So I guess I can live without HBO, it's just a shame, that's all.
This signature intentionally left blank.
You're an idiot.
Day 0 - Episode 1 shows in the US - start avoiding forums you like to frequent.
Day 7 - You get episode 1, US gets episode 2.
Thus, avoiding forums you like must continue for 10 weeks if you don't want to see spoilers for the show. There ARE things happening in the show that did not happen in the books. They are more irritating to me than interesting, but I can see that a) some people might like them, b) the audience for the show is much wider than that of the books.
$2.99 for HD. Grow up folks. It costs a lot of money to make the show. Sure, it would be nice to have other purchasing options, but if you a Windows or Mac platform, there is no excuse for pirating this show. Most of the talent is lesser known British/Irish actors and actresses too.
I have HBO here. My dad watches game of thrones every Friday night.
I can't wait and pirate it to watch monday night.
The difference:
He watches in SD, dubbed in portuguese (there's no option for subtitles).
I watch it in 720p 5.1 original audio.
Yes, and I can buy a set of dominoes for 50c from a garage sale and throw them at cats if want as well. Doesn't mean I want to.
The complaint is over the time lag, which is a matter of convenience. I provided the books as an example of a more convenient alternative. You're saying this is unacceptable. Let me guess, you don't read books?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
$2.99 for an HD episode on iTunes. Stop the FUD. I haven't checked, but there are probably other purchase options as well besides HBO/cable subscriptions.
Let me put on my suit and think like an evil, profit driven businessman. I have 3-4 million pirated downloads per episode x 20 episodes to date = 80 million pirated episodes. Let's go for $2.00/episode (Amazon rate) and assume about a 50% conversion (people that would pay versus pirate if it was easy to get). That's still $80 Million in cold hard cash (ok, it's electronic, but you get the idea). I am gobsmacked that HBO simply walks away from this easy cash all to protect possible DVD and network sales. Do both! Rake in the cash from tech-savvy viewers while the show is hot and then pick up the remainder with DVDs. I'm I missing something somewhere?
What is the difference? Except for the fan trying to convert others and the addicted trying to keep it to himself ;)
An Australian audience sub-forum would solve this problem.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
.. and why would you want to discuss the show with Americans anyway?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
I simply don't agree with the concept of paying money for digital goods. I don't recognize the legitimacy of the construct known as "intellectual property" or copyright and since there exists a mechanism in this age to reproduce digital information infinitely at nearly no cost I have no qualms or ethical hangups about taking as much as I can.
The rules of physical objects simply don't transfer to the internet. It's immoral to attempt to impose those rules on the higher plain of existence of pure thought.
And I fully recognize that there's no current method for these big, multi-million dollar, productions to get made if everyone thought and acted as I do. So be it. If such projects can't be made and distributed ethically then they shouldn't be made at all.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
So explain to me the "logic" of how avoiding forums for *one* week is an effective solution to the problem.
So you think that reading a book is a more convenient alternative to watch a 1 hour tv episode? I'm not sure what you think convenient means. Let me guess, you believe that books make you a more sophisticated and intelligent person, whereas TV dulls the mind? As it happens I read a lot of books, but I like TV too.
Delay isn't the big issue, it's the lack of quick, affordable, user-friendly distribution channels. The Oatmeal covered this already. To see GoT, you either have to have cable & HBO and either the time to watch it or a DVR, or you have to wait a year to purchase it on DVD at an insanely high price. Outside of the USA people can't get it on Amazon or Hulu or from the HBO website.
All the content creator would have to do is let people purchase the episodes from their own website at a reasonable price (offer a free version with ads, maybe) and copyright infringement would drop off. It's simple, the torrent websites are providing an easy to access product at a reasonable price in a timely manner. Until the studios do the same, they will continue to see their potential customers get the content elsewhere.
I know you're just trolling, but seriously? I can say "It's just a stupid ..." about practically anything people enjoy watching or participating in. (I'm often tempted to say it about major league sporting events, myself. It's just a bunch of adults playing a game originally designed for kids, kicking a ball around, and getting paid huge salaries for it. How stupid! Can't people get a life?!")
Others would surely tell all of us to get a life, because we're sitting around reading stories on Slashdot.
I'm not really a TV watcher myself, but I've seen a few episodes of Fringe, and thought they were pretty interesting. I started downloading more episodes as I was able to get ahold of decent copies of them. I haven't really had the time to watch more of them, but it's nice knowing I have them on my hard drive, so I can eventually get around to checking them out if and when the opportunity arises.
The point I guess I'm trying to make is -- people can't constantly be in "go, go, go" mode, trying to actively do or achieve things. We all need downtime too, and I'm not just talking about sleep. Entertainment is crucial to a fulfilled life, and it takes many different forms. Not everyone likes the same things, but that's why there are so many options around. I find that half the time, I'd rather play a video game than watch a TV show -- but others get *nothing* out of gaming. So someone following these shows (and probably discussing them with friends too) would certainly be motivated to get new episodes in a timely manner.
I live in Malaysia. Malaysia bans everything you can dream about. They even bleep out "Jesus" on the radio if it's in some songs. Game of Thrones would be so censored in Malaysia it's not even worth watching.
That's why I pirate Game of Thrones. I won't buy the box sets either as those would be censored too. Blah.
$3.00 is kind of high, isn't it? I mean the DVD works out to be able to same amount at that rate. Plus iTunes doesn't work across all operating systems.
I do not want any other cable channels. This is not available to me, or anyone in the US.
My wife and I didn't pirate it, but did finally purchase the entire first season when it appeared on iTunes. This gave us good quality, and commercial free. For a hell of a lot less money than cable and HBO runs in our area. But, now here's of course why so many pirate instead.... we had to wait over a year to -PAY- HBO for the show. If we'd been in any rush to see it (Which the Networks seem to be desperate to have people rush to see their content, given how hard they try to get people to have cable to see it the day it airs) we would have had no choice except to pirate it. Now for us, we weren't in a rush we've got plenty of other entertainment so their show is welcome to sit on the back burner until they make it available. Except here's the thing, now that season 2 is on we're again waiting... which is no problem for us, but the obvious thing would be for HBO to make season 2 episodes available immediately after airing on iTunes. If they did, we'd again be paying for it already! Instead I guess we have to wait until the season 2 dvd's are available... which means that we may not purchase at all if by that time we've found something else to watch or do.
The moral of the story: If you want people to pay for it, then SELL it to them. If you drag it out and keep telling people they can't buy, then yeah they're going to either steal it, or just ignore you.
I didn't offer it as a solution; I mocked a "1st world problem" example of having zero self-control. I'd like to ask, if the book readers are also on the forums why still go?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
1. I don't own a TV
2. I want to see the original English version
Convenient as in can be picked up anywhere and anytime. You don't need a power source. Convenient as in about $30 for 4 more years worth of shows that you can read and digest as many times as you want, at the pace you like. I can understand the convenience of a book on tape vs reading, for when you're driving or working. Explain how the books aren't convenient compared to the show.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
.. and why would you want to discuss the show with Americans anyway?
Good question. Why don't you post it on slashdot.org.au and find out?
Why do all the cable TV networks, and producers, and actors, and writers and all the people associated with movies and such think that they deserve to be wealthy for what is essentially putting on a puppet show? Lives don't depend on what they do. Nations will not rise or fall on the next episode of Family Guy. Far less of far less importance rides on *any* form of entertainment than, say, the guy who keeps the local electrical substation in my part of Brooklyn running. So why the *F* does the schmuck producer in Hollywood think he gets to make many multiples more than the doctor who saves his kid's life?
It's high time that every last piece of work in the entertainment industry gets cut down to size. (Of course, the same must also be said of bankers and politicians, but that's a different conversation.) It would be super if we had governments that would cooperate on that score and end copyright, but since that's not gonna happen piracy will have to be the vehicle to get it done.
So pirate away, world! Pirate like the dickens. Take a pledge to pirate every blessed piece of music, film, TV show, and what have you for 5 years until the RIAA, MPAA, and all the rest of their ilk are gone for good.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Some people are going to pirate your shit no matter what. They either don't have the money to pay for it, just download everything because they can, think they are making a statement or whatever. Those people you ignore, because there's shit you can do about them.
However there's another group of people who will give you their money for a product instead of pirate it, if a few things are true:
1) It needs to be worth what you what. Worth is, of course, an individual measure and some people aren't reasonable but most are. If you sell them TV at a reasonable price, they'll buy it, if you want a shit ton per episode, they'll go elsewhere.
2) It needs to be easily and quickly available. It needs to be there when they want it. Not when you think it is best for market segmentation, when they want it. When they look they need to find right away.
3) It needs to be available without too much bullshit. This is important and what the comic really demonstrates. Someone needs to go and be able to buy it just by clicking "buy" on Amazon or iTunes or Steam or whatever various service is relevant.
If any of these get too out of whack they may well say "Fuck it, I'll just pirate it." That option is always there and you are stupid if you think you can get rid of it. There's been a massive war on it, utterly failed, as such your shit will be there too.
So keep the stuff available, the bullshit level low and the PRICE REASONABLE and you'll see online sales. Start to have the idea that there is the One True Way(tm) to watch your shit, and people will just elect to nab it elsewhere.
So first off: You know these shows are based off of a series of books, right? The first one shares the name: A Game of Thrones.
I've not watched the series, but all the things I hear people chattering about are all, well, how the books are. Just like this. One feature of the books is they don't seem to have a main character. They have multiple characters that you follow, and you jump from character to character. Also, as the series goes on, more and more characters get introduced and the sub-plots get to monkey-fuck retarded levels.
Seriously? Why?
Having to fragment discussions into regional sub-forums just to accommodate a single TV show is clearly ridiculous.
This may be the case in USA, but not necessarily the rest of the world.
That's not love, that's marketing.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
i do have a subscription to hbo, and have for over 10 years (since the original airing of band of brothers). the reason that i also download it is to have a hard copy of it. if they would just make is super easy to dump the stuff from my dvr to my pc, it'd be a non-issue. sure, i could buy the blu-rays when they come out, but they already got my money. i was able to capture the analog stream back in the day without issue and to vcr before that. quality of product, lack of degradation, and bonus revenue streams have no relevancy in the discussion. the ball is in their court.
...
People do discuss popular culture outside of designated forums. That, and the sub-forum will torrent it, which brings us back to the discussion at hand.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
It would be a solution to spoilers, and it would be trivial to implement. What's really ridiculous is complaining that Americans are spoiling the show for Australians when those who have read the books are spoiling it for everyone at the same time in the same forum.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Not season 2, you douche bag.
Because I don't have HBO.
The solution is therefore to have separate forums for those discussing the books, and those discussing the show. Having separate forums for Australian audiences would logically follow.
Segregate the internet because it's convenient for media companies?
Dumb ideas like that are why piracy is flourishing and Big Media is fighting a losing battle.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Ummm, no. Not the current season. Season 1 only. People who don't have cable/HBO have no legal option for purchasing the current season of Game of Thrones.
I pirate because I can't buy HBO Go by itself.
They will only sell it to me if I have a cable subscription.
Explain how the books aren't convenient compared to the show.
TV shows or movies have much higher "bitrate". That is, if you made a movie from a book, it would be faster (for most people) to watch the show than to read the book.
Also, at least for me, reading a paper book is less convenient physically than watching a movie. The books usually are made so they close by themselves unless I put a heavy object on them (I use an old battery from a UPS), but then I cannot read the text that is under that object, so I have to move it to read that portion of the text. Then lift it, turn the page and put it back down. On the other hand, I can just start the movie/TV show on my PC or VCR and watch it while doing nothing (or eating, or putting some device back together after repairing it or something else).
Because sending the episode to Australian broadcasters, via this new fangled thing called the internet, would take longer than an hour, and certainly would not be available for immediate viewing.
See, this is the problem with people applying MicroEcon's market segmentation when they don't understand economics.
I am John Hurt.
I do not pay for a HBO subscription. I don't even have cable. I have to wait one month until Game of Thrones is subbed and released for non-english speaking countries. But, when I went to NY and walked by the HBO store, I decided to go in and buy LOTS of GoT merchandise. They really need to change their view on customers - if I want to watch just this series, I see no reason in paying for subscription to 50+ other channels. Having it broadcast online (and internationally) at the same time as on TV, by paying a small fee per episode (I would happily pay $3 for each one), would sure increase their revenue.
An entire season behind. And you can rest assured the cost in other markets is a lot more than $2.99. US iTunes store prices are way less than anywhere else.
Let me guess. You have cats?
Seriously, its awesome
At first, it was wanting to watch things that just aren't on TV anymore. I'd use Netflix to get DVDs en masse, then rip them to watch later. But Netflix didn't have everything I wanted, and DVDs were too slow in the mail. Netflix's streaming content was just laughably inadequate.
So I turned to Hulu. For a time, Hulu was good. But Hulu was slow. Ongoing shows would not have content until sometimes more than a month after the show aired. There were no back episodes if I didn't watch for a while. Hulu failed.
So I turned to pirated video files. Suddenly, I could get high quality content, better than I'd ever get from Netflix or Hulu, and most importantly, there were no delays. I could decide to watch a new show I'd just heard of, and minutes later I'd have every episode ever made, queued up to watch in my media player of choice on any device in my home. For ongoing series, I could now download and watch, interruption free, almost immediately after it airs, but most of the time I'd time-shift to days or weeks later. Shows that are not out on DVD, but not showing on TV either, I have full access to whenever I want.
I am currently paying for cable, a DVR, and even some non-basic channels. So I don't really feel bad about pirating every TV show I watch.
For the producers, there is no difference. I could very well be DVRing the shows. The ad-based model is make-believe anyway, based on false, unverified assumptions. Even before DVRs allowed me to skip ads, I never watched ads anyway. Ad breaks were when I used the bathroom, went into the kitchen for a snack, or talked with family. Heck, with VHS I was time-shifting and skipping ads for most of my TV-watching life, anyway. The only time I ever watch ads, ever, in my entire life, has been when ads themselves are part of the entertainment. In other words the Super Bowl. Sporting events are basically the only thing I do watch live. So hey, those Super Bowl advertisers are getting their money's worth. For every other show, I might as well not exist because I'm not providing the advertisers the eyeballs they think are there. Am I stealing from the TV companies every time I leave the room during an ad break? The advertiser model is make-believe, and for the TV producers, there is no difference.
For me, though, there's a huge difference. There is a massive convenience factor that I cannot get through any legal means. I can watch any episode, any time, on any device. Sometimes I watch on my desktop, sometimes a TV, sometimes on my laptop in a hotel room with no internet.
I should point out, I still buy DVDs. I get and watch them for the special features, and then watch the shows themselves streamed from my local media server box where I've stashed my pirated content.
HBO shouldn't be so upset by the pirating numbers, because chances are a fair number of those pirates are subscribers anyway who feel too restricted by HBO on how and when they can watch. The others are probably talking to people about the show, which is causing more people to subscribe to their network or buy the DVDs.
It will be interesting to see if TV companies can adapt to the changing technology or if TV will simply die out as advertisers realize nobody is actually watching their ads (and haven't for some time) or people stop subscribing to cable and premium channels since they can get better service through piracy. I'm ambivalent. Even if no new TV content is produced, there's more pirated content out there than I could possibly watch in a lifetime. If it does run out, there's plenty of web originals out there and growing fast. Still, it would be nice if the industry reordered itself to break free of time constraints and dated business models. Just produce and sell your original works a la carte in a high quality DRM-free digital format for a fair price.
Game of thrones seasons 1 and 2 are available on iTunes down here, I believe each episode is available the day after it airs in the US. At a price of $30 (BTW 1AUD ~ 0.99 USD atm) it is more than competitive with the cost of season 1 in dvd form ($59 at JB hi-fi). The only problem even at $30 it is more than 60% more expensive than the equivilent US price for a episode of a comparable show and 50% more than the UK price. So I am still mulling over if I will buy it or not. If it cost $20 i would buy both seasons today.
The 60% price differntial is generally consistant across the whole range of downloadable media in Australia. As far as I can work out this is due to the iTunes prices being set 7 or so years ago when the Aussie dollar was worth 20-30% less and the fact that Australians have historically paid more for media, due to a range of factors including small volume, high transport costs and high minimum wages as well as cartel and monopolistic practices. With the internet all these differences whould dissapear and then only reason we are paying more is because either we are getting price gouged or we are suckers.
So until this discrepancy closes I will be much more reluctant to pay for media through these services, I will be buying them on eBay from overseas, I will be waiting on Steam for computer games to drop from $90 for new releases to under $20 and I will be borrowing and watching or watching with my mates their copies of media (how ever obtained). I will even be renting dvds from the local dvd store (e.g. $5 for 2 episodes of the new BBC sherlock homes rather than $8 an episode from iTunes).
On a side not there are a buch of good online book stores (like Baen) where you can buy electronic copies of their books for $5 and other sites where real copies can be had for under half the price of australian bookstores (such as book depository) which I will continue to happily support.
we don't read in Australia
I don't know this show and am not interested in viewing it. However I can think of two models that will work.
MODEL I:
Copy iTunes or Mubi.
But it probably will not deliver enough viewers to fund the series by itself.
So, on to...
MODEL II:
1. Ideally create one global launch date for all languages/regions and stick to it. This will provide maximum social networking and minimal spoilers. This would require sales to other markets starting after the pilot is made but before a whole season has been created. In other words, a new global sales strategy. So talk to a global ad agency. The other option is to make one global launch date per language, but you may get pirate versions I would imagine.
2. Insert reasonable number of advertisements into market-specific versions, e.g. EN-US, EN-UK, EN-AU, etc.
3a. If you can just provide speedy downloads from your site and akamai then do it. But that is going to be awfully expensive.. unless you have an amazing contract with ISPs all over the world already.
3b. Instead, create a bittorrent for each format, with many seeders of the appropriate version within each region's territory. This way Australians can download the Australian version with Australian advertisements fastest due to having many seeds provisioned within its continental LAN. A few college kids could do this, but if you ask the ad agency to do it, they will charge you the same as or slightly less than the cost if you had hired akamai.
Video quality should be 720p or higher. The easier the delivery is made, the less important and moralistic will any other pirate versions (undoubtedly somebody will edit out ads and make an uninterrupted version. Maybe the honest version will only have ads at beginning end and same points as TV version, so people may still prefer it and give back to the creators.)
4. Create websites and social networking to advertise and link it all up. Word of mouth / magazine / twitter all linking there. Websites point to the torrents. Also sell via app stores, amazon, etc. Try to get fans to sign up. They can read blogs, teasers, special cilps on the website, post in forums, ask questions and maybe even help guide the series. Imagine if Joss Whedon was doing this.
5. Offer extra things to purchase, maybe Amazon wants to do a special product deal.
6. Offer DVD, Blu-Ray box sets and 1080p files as standalones or full season download via bittorrent or app stores. These products have no advertisements and will include special extras like making of clips, interviews with director and actors, printable pamphlets, maybe desktop wallpapers, 3d printable models, suscriptions to follow the different actors, blogs by the fashion designers or whatever. Pricing of the collections should however be the same price or cheaper than the current box sets if buying the digital version since no physical distribution is then necessary.
7. $$$
I want to pay for Game of Thrones. I'm proud to pay for great TV, music, books, and news.
HBO won't let me. I'm standing here with dollars in my fist yelling "TAKE MY MONEY", but they won't do it, because they insist on the ludicrous, outdated concept of "subscription" and "scheduled programming".
The show's awesome, its on an amazing show on a pay channel most people dont have
See above link to the comic on theoatmeal. The HD episodes you can buy on itunes are a year old.
The episodes are not released to viewers without cable and an HBO subscription for one year, even though I would cheerfully pay them for it now. Ditto for some excellent shows on showtime.
I actually wait a year, or go watch with friends who subscribe.
Funny thing is, I'm watching it legitimately for free that way, when what I really want is to *PAY HBO FOR THEIR SHOW* so I can watch it legitimately at home without the cable extortion rates.
Then again, it helps me stay in touch with those friends. :)
tl;dr bc i dont have hbo
It's not available on iTunes until a while (days at least) after it's released on TV.
No, it is not. You are probably thinking of season 1.
I haven't seen anybody anywhere mention this, or I'd have replied to a thread instead of starting one.
I've gotten 5 DMCA takedown notices from my ISP for being in Game of Thrones bittorrent swarms. I haven't seen one of those notices in 4 or 5 years prior to this. So much for assuming that Big Content had figured out it isn't worth the time and expense...
Another serious question.
Why do you feign ignorance and naivete to an audience who sees right through it?
Disclaimer, this post is probably going to offend some people.
I don't care. Really... I mean it. I had given some thought to trying to be say this delicately, but then I realized that there really wasn't much of a point.
So to that end... why bother pirating a TV series at all?
I mean, everything on television that is actually worth watching (and there certainly isn't very much of it) is more than likely going to be worth waiting a few months for to get the entire season on DVD.
But oh noes! Then you can't watch it right now! Really? Is your life so devoid of anything with meaning and direction that you can't pull yourself away from yet another mindless TV show? That, to me, doesn't say that the TV series is necessarily any good... all it does is speak volumes about people's priorities and lack of self-restraint.
That said... given this show's obvious popularity, I do think it's incredibly self-defeating of HBO to not put the episodes up on iTunes at least within a few days of airing. They could stand to make a killing.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Your option, though, is illegal.
One thing that the industry seemingly has not gotten a grip on yet is the concept that physical file transfers are not necessarily easily supplanted by streaming services. My commute to work is 45 minutes long on mass transit, i.e. exactly the length of an hour long show...
Netflix takes at least a minute and a half to buffer, and God help you if at any point during the train ride other people start using their phones to watch a show as well. Amazon Prime is similarly hampered. The network TV websites either don't load at all because they don't like my IP address or browser, load but use Flash and as a result my phone is half dead by time I get to work, buffer ridiculous amounts, have unreasonable quantities of commercials that require their own minute-long buffering times only to be followed by additional buffering of the series, or any number of other technological issues that prevent their product from being viable.
iTunes is closer, but doesn't work on my Android phones at all, and on my laptop it causes my CPU to require 20-40% load (as opposed to 3-7% for an xvid file), so my battery is a question mark...plus iTunes and Quicktime both suck as video players, and their super locked down video formats make it impossible to use anything else.
PlayLater looked like the most promising compromise out there...until I tried five times to download the same episode only to have it fail each time, so I can't yet comment on how well that does or doesn't work.
I'd be happy watching certain shows on DVD even if they weren't a year behind, but the DMCA has made it illegal for me to rip my own DVDs to watch in this manner.
It's like there's no feasible way to watch these series that doesn't involve killing batteries, missing a large quantity of the content, buying devices I don't want, testing the limits of my 'unlimited' data plan, violating some flavor of copyright law, or in most cases a combination of the above.
The glimmer of hope I have is this: Litigation aside, the RIAA seems to have mostly gotten its act together insofaras I can purchase 100% DRM-free MP3s from Amazon, 100% DRM-free AAC files from Apple, stream music I know from Spotify for free, and stream music I may-or-may-not know from Pandora/Slacker. Again, I'm not forgiving their litigation crap, but there's at least a semblance of attempting to meet halfway. Back in 1997, however, we had Napster and we had LiquidAudio. The latter of which allowed for legal music downloads, but only allowed it on one computer, three transfers to a portable device (even the same device, keeping in mind that MP3 players of the day often had 64MBytes of storage or less), and one could only burn it to CD twice. To them, this was palatable for consumers; clearly it was not. If it can happen to the RIAA, i wouldn't put it past other entertainment industry companies to eyeball what happened. However, I do think it will take much longer for them; no one has seemed to attempt DRM-free video purchases, so it's clear that it will be many, many years - if ever - that the MPAA or HBO take a stab at it.
well the good news is that i have checked. The series is 8 eps into season 2. only season 1 is avail on itunes and that is AFTER dvd release. and there are not other purchase options besides hbo/cable subscriptions. hence this thread with almost 400 comments.
trolls throwing grenades deserve shotguns.
not fud - facts.
I live in Australia. I'd like to consider myself a good consumer. I buy all my favourite things on the Blu-rays, and I have many favourite things.
The reason I pirate GAME OF THRONES is essentially because I'm sick of waiting for distributors to recognise that it's a changing/changed world with the advent of the internet. The way free-to-air and cable television works at the moment, which I will freely admit these companies have built their business models around over many years and might find the prospect of change particularly frightening, just can't work in this ever-changing world of ours. Our lives are busy and we want the convenience of watching shows when we want, and we don't want to have our favourite shows spoiled by having to wait even a day.
The best businesses see a need and fill it, right?
We already know the capabilities, and we know where this is going. Television content will be delivered over TCP/IP to our IPTVs, and television shows will have release days and times rather than airing days and times. (Content will probably have expiry times to begin with, but as physical media goes away...) We consumers will get the convenience we're shouting desperately for, and networks and distributors will still make their money, whether by a subscription fee or maybe there are still ad-breaks. They'll even have a perfect record of who's watching what, which will help them target their advertising even better.
I'm massively okay with this. Here's my money. Here's my age bracket, gender, and region of residence. You can have these things. Just get with the fricking times.
Oh, there's politics and licensing that needs to be worked out? Don't care. Make it work. It's actually in your interest.
I am offended that the majority of the money I spend would go to subsidizing all the shit programming that is aired on all these other channels.
Even more offensive is the paid programming. It seems my provider doesn't air anything late at night when I can actually watch TV. Most of the channels are either listed as "Off air" or "Paid Programming", which is some pathetic attempt to sell me a new folding pocket knife, blender, or push-up bra. As if commercials within shows weren't bad enough, late night viewer selection is greatly limited to hour long commercials.
TV broadcast pricing is the most common bundle scheme going. Other industries try it, like the insurance companies that will not sell you Liability Insurance without also including coverage for tools, office supplies, and everything else except computer equipment, which must be purchased separately. I'd like to only purchase the products or services that I want and the market rate for those products and services. I don't want to pay for shows I will not watch, nor thousands of dollars worth equipment insurance for equipment I do not have.
I see a lot "its available a week later in Australia". Ok it's fun and all, but actually in most countries it's just *not* available.
Main reason for pirating it, is that otherwise you're denied access to that kind of media for a few years and sometimes simply forever. I personally believe that access to most things should be a worldwide freedom, but then again, everyone's debating how countries are nice limits for stuff, such as their religion, ideas, way of working, etc.. oh and tv shows too. (and I think that's b/s and that we should all have equal possibilities)
Thank you for the excellent example of the logical fallacy known as a False Analogy.
A more fitting analogy would be wanting to order a steak, but instead only having the option of buying an all day catered dinner, during which the time slot for getting served a steak falls within a one hour window. You still have to pay for each item served, regardless of whether you ordered it, ate it, or even attended the serving. If you pay for the upgraded DVR package, you will be given 3 take-home containers. If you would be willing to enter into a contract to do this every day, then I'm sure broadcast television pricing makes perfect sense to you.
All analogies, including mine, have faults. The thing is, no analogy is needed for what OP said. He explained the position very well without using any. Your bumbling, unrelated car analogy does nothing to detract from his point.
While reading the comments on this story (here in Australia) my iPhone just sent me a notification via Boxcar from Sickbeard running on my Ubuntu MythTV Backend at home to let me know that Episode 8 of Season 2 of Game of Thrones has just been successfully downloaded and will be at home waiting for me when I finish work (i.e. get sick of reading slashdot comments).
Now if only I could find the time to watch episodes 1 through 7.....
The complaint isn't "american viewers are ruining the experience for australian viewers", the complaint is "why is the licensing so messed up that for half the world the convenient and sane option is to download the show illegally?"
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
And even then, i would still just "pirate" the first season if i was interested in watching it.
It's easier.
It's in the torrentsphere now.
Statistics of the top-ten are seriously flawed. Sure the number of downloads is highest in Australia, but there are a few small countries in the top-ten list too, and anyway population sizes vary vastly between the countries in the list. We should really correct for population. Doing so gives me a very different result, with a number to give the download rate corrected for population - the US rate indexed as 1:
1 Norway (24)
2 Australia (14)
3 The Netherlands (8.5)
4 Greece (8.4)
5 Canada (7.1)
6 United Kingdom (3.9)
7 Poland (2.5)
8 Spain (2.2)
9 United States (1)
10 Philippines (0.95)
Most notable is how the US falls down to the bottom of this list. Australia down to #2, Norway all the way on top, and Netherlands on #3. This I think says more about the relative popularity of a show in an area than plain download numbers.
The lower end of this top-ten is probably not accurate as there are plenty more small countries that may move up further but I don't have the numbers. The number of downloads from the US is actually quite small compared to it's population size.
in the usa there is a FCC law saying you can get limited + hbo.
disney channel needs to go premium ESPN as well
Why can't there be a ESPN theme pack as well as a local RSN theme pack.
I'll have to wait months / years till a series gets aired here. They have to find enough interest to translate to german and then show it. Community, for example, started last month, with Season 1.
I like the original voices and the original language to learn something, and I like to watch all of a series. Often, in germany, they only air it for as long as it's making money THERE, which means, typically, I won't even see all the seasons. If at all.
If i would be able to legally watch that stuff (including paying for it), I would. But I can't even buy the original versions say on iTunes.
- davepermen
Some of us are only seeing the first season *now*. In some country we see the newest TV show *YEARS* after the first showing in the US. Heck some show *never* come here in Germany. "One week to wait is too much" come off as very weak willed on some people side.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
What sucks is the partitioning of the world in small zone, and that some of the vendor you mentioned refuse (or are not allowed to) to sell or show stuff from the US. The Internet has long been balkanized by copyright and region release staggering.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Tho I feel I'm not actually pirating it.
I paid for the Cable Subscription required to get access to HD HBO for the period of Game of Thrones.
I like the show and want to pay for it, I want them to make more of it.
I also download it every week to archive a copy, because it's less hassle than pulling it off my PVR.
It bugs me that AMC also gets money for my liking Game of Thrones, and that HBO gets money for other crap from my liking Game of Thrones. I don't want gritty political dramas, I don't want witty comedies; I want good Fantasy and good Sci Fi. I will pay for it.
I hope everyone out there that only downloads it, finds a way to contribute to the economic success of the project; to encourage it to keep going. Rather than the way of Rome.
In Germany we have to wait at least a year until a new (season of a) US TV show starts, if at all. ;)
So don't whine when you just have to wait a week
In case of the second season of Game of Thrones the situation has improved as it begins airing in two days on German Pay TV.
However I recall other shows where we really had two wait at least a year, like Breaking Bad for example.
Why ? Because it kicks some serious ass, that's why. I'm a diehard ASOIAF fan, I'm eating my fingers waiting for The Winds of Winter and in the meantime GoT is the best substitute. I refrain myself from sleeping every Sunday night (I'm French, so the episodes usually come out of the HDTV scene @ 4.30 am, Paris time) to get it WHEN IT'S AVAILABLE. Now mark my words, because every fan feels the same : I don't care of the means, as long as I get it soon as possible. Were there a legit way to watch it at roughly the same time as you yanks do, I'd pay good money for it. But there's not.
In sweden, we have to wait close to a year for most shows.
That's why everyone who knows how pirates stuff, being a year behind is absurd in an online world.
Perhaps this is why good shows die. Not the piracy, but the high cost of initial adoption.
I spent many years disconnected from the tube. I did go to the theatre here and there, and bought/rented a few movies, but by-and-large didn't pay much attention to TV series.
Subsequently, there are a *lot* of good shows out there that I haven't watched. Rather than watching something that costs $100+/month for a cable subscription that shows in [insert obscure and inconvenient timeslot here], I manage to pick up all the slightly older stuff I haven't seen at a reasonable price for box sets etc.
Of course, by this time the series are several seasons in. My purchase counts little towards whatever stats they use to determine popularity, and they usually get cut (or start to dry up). I know *tons* of people that by the big box-sets for shows (usually a short time after release when they're a bit more reasonably price) but - like me - don't want to pay for overpriced, commercial-ridden, inconveniently-timed cable/satellite runs or overpriced singles.
On the other hand, most of us are more-than-willing to pay a reasonable price for stuff like Netflix etc. Even in the busy summer when my own TV-viewership is near nil, I don't mind keeping the subscription running (both to support the service and for the odd time when I have my niece over for cartoons, etc).
I stopped by a relatives and *tried* to watch a show with them but the amount of commercials made me feel ill.
On-demand subscriptions (and to some extent physical releases for us collectors) are where it's at. Netflix is great.
For more up-to-date programming, I would be more than happy to pay a reasonable fee per-episode to watch on-demand. No, not the $5.99 for a movie B.S., but a buck or so, maybe two for an episode. I'd even stomach a few (a few, mind you) commercials at a non-deafening volume. In the digital age, they could probably even profile people pretty easily and start having *more effective* commercials by targeting them better to area and interest.
Modern TV packages need to die. Once they go to the tar-pits, everyone wins. The viewers who get the shows they want, and TV companies and studios who could likely sell a shit-load of programming and actually see an improvement in the effectiveness of advertising as well. Hell, they could adopt the gaming model where you pre-buy "credits" and then use them to watch the shows you want. Sell X credits at $Y, or have a credits subscription on a monthly basis for a slightly discount price.
I get the shows I when. They get money. Their advertisers get eyeballs that actually result in sales. They get stats on who likes what shows, and perhaps less good shows die.
Everyone wins. Sounds good to me.
That should be the actual title of this story. Why, oh why, can't HBO sell streaming service to customers worldwide like the market obviously demands?
It is only legally available in two forms:
1. Sky Atlantic on Sky TV. Not available on any competing TV provider. If you're on Virgin, FreeView or whatnot, you have only option 2.
2. Wait a year for the box sets.
Instead they can sell it 5$ per episode, they can make more money than Titanic by the end of the season even if quarter of the people pay....
GoT Season 2 isn't available on iTunes at all as of the time of writing. Season 1 was only added when it was released on DVD. This post is talking about pirating the currently airing season 2...
Well at least it's not available unless I pay for a Satellite Dish, Installation and take out an expensive monthly subscription for a year.
All because Sky TV want exclusivity and I'm on a Cable subscription.
So people are going to pirate it because unless they want to wait a year for it come to out on DVD that's the only way they will get to watch Game of Thrones.
I would happily subscribe to HBO but because I am in the UK they don't want my money.
Yup that's crazy isn't it, a TV company won't take my money so they force me into using other means to watch their programmes which I would happily pay for if I could.
And for equally obvious reasons.
Here in Europe, we are not allowed to see the show at launch, first of all we can't take H.B.O and secondly we are not see the show on netflix or wherever it is available from legally either. One choice is to pay around $250US/Year to see it 4 weeks after on payment channels here, or we can download it via bit torrent and see it within hours of release (After all it is not aired at convinient times for us anyway)
If you want neither of these, we can see it about 1 year after on cabel channels here...
I love the show, but its not avaliable where i live at all. I have a pile of cash i would be willing to spend to get at Game of Thrones but nobody to give it to. Go figure it out.
I am not a Neilsen Family. Whether I watch a show on free-to-air, or have a subscription to cable and HBO (which I do), however I watch a Television Show means nothing. If I download an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" because Tivo managed not to get it, so what? I'll watch Game of Thrones however I can, and with my HBO subscription I'll watch it on my Tivo... if I can. If Tivo doesn't forget.
In the end, with a Television Show, what matters is whether I actually buy the DVDs at the end of the year. I do. On Blu-ray. I will next year as well. For a show that is dumped out on cable, like water over a damn, they have no way to measure how many people actually sit down and watch it. They have no way to measure the actual eyeballs that see the show. Neilsen Ratings be damned, as they are worthless in today's world. A Television Studio Head who pays attention to Neilsen Ratings as the only measure of whether their show is good has their head up their ass...
But guess what? With rampant "piracy" for a Television show (free or cable) they actually have a way to measure What's Hot, and What Isn't So Much. Game of Thrones is most Pirated? That turns into "Holy Shit! We need to renew this for another season, and get those DVDs out there ASAP!" As opposed to "Eh, the crusty old Neilsen Families didn't watch it much."
Money is what matters: Buy the DVDs. Numbers is what matters: Measure the number of downloads (if you can).
Also, I bought all the books. George R.R. Martin owns me.. and I hope he'll finish up with the next book. :)
I get the torrents because:
1. I'm not in the US so I'd have to wait.
2. The torrent release comes without advertisements.
3. I can watch the torrent release when I have the time, instead of when they choose to air it.
4. I don't like to pay for things I only watch once and then forget (and I do forget, and I don't like watching the same thing twice)
and if they never make it there - whatever.. Will add to my list of "no, I never got into that show either.."
It would help if they would release them on the internet in the first place. It's clear how many people WANT to watch them from an online source. Why are they too stupid to even attempt to capitalize on it?
I don't want to wait for the shitty translation so I'd rather pirate the original. An alternative would be to wait until it is out on DVD but I am not going to wait for that.
Yes I am a filthy pirate but I only pirate the things I want but can't get in a format I can accept.
Same goes for games. I'll only purchase DRM free titles nowadays which means that I'll pirate the major releases.
I would like to pay but I don't like to get fucked in the process.
The main reason is that since TV sucks so badly these days, I don't own one anymore. I have a video beamer shared between my home cinema and Wii, but no cable or other TV reception. And since you can't legally buy the episodes anywhere - there could be a webcomic link here, but by now we all know the one - piratebay it is.
As soon as media companies understand that the Internet is the distribution system they've always dreamed about, they will see the light at the end of the tunnel. The music industry had to be forced to accept that fact, but right now, around 40% of all music sales already happen digitally. A few years from now, they will make more money on the evil Internet than through their old channels. Just like they once fought the VHS tooth and nail and today most movies make more with the DVD version than at the box office.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Wow, can't avoid forums for a week? Can't do something else for a WHOLE WEEK?
It's not a week, though is it? The show airs once per week so you have to do it all week, every week.
No sig today...
Hello, Australian "Consumer" here. Never had cable tv. Previously a light user of the video rental channel. Use the BBC ABC, SBS and NPR (state broadcaster's internet streaming facilities). Now I tell you want. Find me something I'm really interested in. Charge me $5 per torrent to get my hands on a convenent, fast, legal download (and give me a choice of file size - say 250mb to 1.5gb per hour of broadcast) and I'm in. While you're there, don't stuff me around with DRM bullshit.
Almost noone thinks it's wrong... and maybe it's time to reflect that in the laws we live by?
I am, because I can. No other justification is needed.
Next up on Slashdot: which lions eat which gazelles, and why!
I live in rural Netherlands, this means we have only CanalDigitaal satellite TV. They don't offer HBO. So I download (wich is legal) and I bought the DVD box from S1 to watch it again before starting on S2 (I can't believe I missed that much). I will do this again before I start watching S3 (buying S2 and watching it). I don't want to wait a year before I can watch S2 because my friends have seen it and I want to join the conversations. I use the only way I have to pay for it.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
I am in the UK and have Sky (the satellite TV provider here). I watched Game of Thrones Season 1 thanks to a friend's recommendation some time after it aired (and missing it) via downloads. I very much enjoyed it and greatly looked forward to the second season and started watching that on Sky Atlantic - the channel which basically airs hot new US shows. There's a 24hour delay from when it airs in the US, but I don't particularly care.
However, the amount of commercial airtime in it is absolutely repugnant. It has not been lost on me that a 45 min show has been stretched to 1hr 15m (beyond the usual 'rounded' padding of a show to 1hr) since it is evidently a popular show. 30mins of advertising is just too much and utterly destroys the experience of watching it. We now just record it (with Sky+) and watch it an hour after airing in order to ensure we can skip past the crap, but it still takes you out of the experience. The last couple of weeks I've gone back to just downloading them.
This is the *only* thing I've wanted to watch (I don't usually watch TV/Sky and the subscription is mostly for my wife) but frankly the shittyness of the experience has really made me question wtf I am spending my money on each month.
I live in germany where all TV Programs are dubbed. I *hate* it. I dislike the voices, I dislike the voice acting and some meaning gets lost in translation (especially with jokes).
So for me it's more a problem created here in germany than a problem with HBO.
Waiting a year for the DVD release becomes very unattractive when it is now that all your friends and colleagues watch and talk about it.
It's an ancient technology, still used by the elderly and the feeble-minded to obtain single-media entertainment and unsourced information in a serial, time-oriented fashion. It's the precursor to the on-demand random access entertainment and information sources we have today.
Actually, is "television" still in use? I thought it was from the last century. Can you stop it to go peeing for example? Or re play the parts you didn't quite understood? or show subtitles in any languaje?
I have no idea if GoT is on free network TV, but if it is then it will probably be at least half a season behind the American release. We have a channel on SkyTV (our only significant paid-TV service) called SoHo which has GoT, which is more likely to be closer to the America release, but SoHo costs NZ$10 extra on top of the $45 a month for the actual SkyTV service. (HD is around an extra $10.) So the cost to those who are only interested in GoT is quite expensive.
I don't watch it myself, but a friend of mine would always bug me to download it for him (he's not much of a downloader) as soon as could on the day it was out, so I'm thinking that timing is indeed a big thing. I remember when Heroes first came out, it took a while for it to even come out on NZ TV, so watching it online or downloading it was the ONLY way we had to see it. (This was when Heroes was still exciting.)
I live in Germany... Firstly, every legal source for anything is blocked here by a fascist organization called GEMA. Secondly all TV programs have German voice overs which make them unbearable to watch. Thirdly, the Game of Thrones airs here more than 6 months after the original airing in the US. So yeah. I torrent it. Then again If I had an alternative that was as easy as torrenting TV shows I'd gladly pay a reasonable fee for it. Sadly there are no legal sources.
if I only had to wait a week that'd be fine, but here in Korea the only choice is to pirate everything I want to watch. Occasionally very interesting shows do get picked up by Korean TV, but out of say all the network and cable shows out there, the amount that get picked up which aren't CSI or prison break are pretty low.
it's always at least a year later, possibly longer.
You've got a 1% chance you can see the show a year later at some unspecified time or I can just download what I want to watch when I want to.
I have a somewhat different point of view to most posters on this thread
The HBO producers paid money to make this show. Lots of money. They probably spent more on it than you'll earn in your lifetime.
It's their creation, they made it. They have the right to show it when, where and how they want. They have the right to use a business model you think is doomed. They have the right to charge $25/ep.
The sense of entitlement from most posters on this thread is staggering.
Does not explain why ladette to lady is shown at 1 am. Serious wtf considering the crap on tv at 10:30pm to 1 am.
Good thing is that it can't be canceled, they have to make the whole season. Bad news is that hour does joe tv executive know I love this show more than a bryony loves his pony?
Last year it was available on iTunes .. I for one subscribed for the season .. this year it isn't .. I think the whole story is people are willing to pay $0.99 or so, they aren't willing to wait a week or play, join HBO or play other games just to watch it, so they download
I agree it would be a nightmare to try to simultaneously broadcast a show on all the networks everywhere at the same time. The question that comes to mind is, why exactly do we need those TV Stations again?
Put each episode of a series up on the web, make it legally downloadable and watchable for say $1 US per episode. Make the regional ones for markets where the economy is considerably worse available with dubbing in the local language or subtitles available for a comparable amount in that economy. No TV Station required, just an internet connection and some device that can download it.
I would rather pay $1 per week for the 2 or 3 shows I consider watchable at any point in time than shell out $50 more for a cable connection that allows me to watch reams of mindless shit that the TV stations are throwing at us - or spend another $30 per month to get the 2-3 channels that offer quality programming. Its not worth it.
Until the Entertainment industry realizes that people might be willing to pay for things if they were offered at a very affordable rate, in a very convenient manner, and that while some people will still pirate stuff, the majority would be willing to pay quite willingly if it was convenient to them, delivered in a format that was easily accessed, and available when they want it, without ads.
I *DO NOT* watch TV shows at all on cable. I refuse to be inundated with 5 mins of advertising every 15 mins - particularly when they have to edit the content and cut out bits to make room for it.
Piracy will cease to be a factor of any concern, when the Entertainment industry realizes it needs to design its delivery services to reflect the customers preferences. Once its as easy to download and watch something legally (but pay a nominal fee for it) as it to download it and watch it illegally (via piracy), I bet most people will pay. As long as the Entertainment industry continues to put major obstacles and very expensive limits on the availability of the content consumers want to watch, piracy will thrive, because a lot of people don't think its a big deal to download something.
I think we are at the point where TV Stations are an anachronism we could do without. I wouldn't miss any of them for even a second. I get all my entertainment online and most of my TV content from Netflix.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Why would I?
Just as not offend the copyright holder? I don't give a fuck about copyright holders. So why would I?
Ever. Besides I can't even watch anything with DRM, except on my iPad.
You're all going to end up waiting at the end because the author has never written an end to the story.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Most TV shows round here come out on DVD about 15 minutes after the final episode of the show is broadcast.
If that was the case for GoT I wouldn't even think about 'Pirating' it.
Instead they chose to leave it a year. So I download it, watch it, buy the DVD as soon as I am able.
Net loss of income to anyone involved? Not. One. Penny.
In Sweden many shows are 6 month after the US, as I mostly watch series with good plots and where you often want to know what happens next, its really hard to not get the next episode from the net, and the next... until I'm in sync with the US schedule.
At the same time I can't get streaming shows in Sweden as its always blocked here.
Another thing is the commercials, a episode without commercials and without the recap and intro is usually around 40 min, but on TV with all these crap its 60 min. So why should I waste my time on commercials? I really can't stand commercials except the time wasted it also disrupts the episode. I rather pay extra to skip them, but the cost should be in line with what the channels get for one person looking at the commercials during one hour!
Also for shows that run on the standard channels, eg do not require an extra fee, the show is financed by commercials and its legal to record the show and then skip the commercial, but to download it from the net is...
...by going to my friend's to watch it. I don't have cable TV. But I do like the show. I'm sure there's someone in the entertainment industry who considers that a form of piracy.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
...which we then subsequently import back as value-added products for 1,000 times the price per tonne.
The reason we can get away with this, of course, is that we only re-import a tiny fraction of what we export.
Well.
Of what the multinational corporations who are pillaging our natural resources export, while paying a pittance in taxes & fees, and whinging about how expensive it is to mine ores in Australia.
You know, that place where they were highly-profitable mines a decade ago, when iron ore fetched about a tenth of what it does today...
Sure, many people would still get the ripped version, but I'd bet a large amount of people if they COULD GET a legitimate copy even with some ads in the video stream would.
Of course, how you have ads that cover everybody worldwide is another story. I suppose if it were for something like Coke that would be easy since it's sold everywhere.
1. The show is addictive. That's why I can't wait a whole week. I'll watch it as soon as it's available anywhere
2. It might be broadcast when I am not available (I don't know actually)
3. Downloading / streaming a movie/series is not against the law where I live.
I have a Sky subscription. I already pay for Sky Atlantic (which shows Game of Thrones and a bunch of other HBO stuff).
If I've missed something because of a clash on the DVR (can only record two channels simultaneously), or fat-fingered deleting the episode I've just watched *and* the next one, or simply didn't know I wanted to watch a series until a few episodes in, or ran out of space on the DVR, damn right I'll torrent it.
As far as I'm concerned, morally if not legally, anything that's previously been broadcast to me, on a channel I have an active, paid subscription for is fair game. It's effectively getting someone else to do my time-shifting for me.
One week late in Australia? That's nothing.
In most European countries, american TV shows are usually at least two seasons behind, and we have to suffer a low-quality dub (except in nordic countries, where people have been educated to subtitles). Downloading, and fan translation and subbing, are the only reasonable ways for people to enjoy such series to their fullest.
Why not ask the television, cable, and satellite companies why they can't offer their services world wide in a global economy?
They will tell you that they can't infringe upon the rights of different countries!
Very recently, I started subscribing to HBO. Actually, very recently I started subscribing to pay cable. Yeah, I understand all of the criticism that comes from that decision, but this isn't about that. What it is about is that I really liked the first season of GoT (paid for the dvd set when it released). I really want to watch the second season, but all I've been able to discover since I subscribed is the most recent episodes that are airing (meaning from this date forward). There is no way to go back and get the older episodes, so the only way I have to watch this show is to start in the middle of the season legally, or I can illegally grab the already aired programs and THEN watch the ones that air legally. Unfortunately, I can't find a place that actually lets me watch the shows. I can't use HBO Go because my cable provider isn't one of the "approved" ones for that channel, so even though I pay full price for HBO, I'm still not able to access the backlog of shows they air. Basically, they've made it very difficult for people who actually paying for the content. Now, granted, I probably won't bit torrent, mainly because I'd rather not risk viruses and all that trying to figure it out, but I can easily see why someone might.
I don't know why Australia is the example here, it sounds like things have improved drastically. I used to live in New Zealand and it wasn't uncommon to wait 6 months for a tv show to air. I now live in Germany. Normally shows are only given to the German dubbing teams on release so it takes a month when they really rush it, and over half a year in many cases. Then I have to find out what channel it is on, and watch it on my tiny little tv interspersed with ads and in German, at some very specific point in time several months from now, assuming I am home and not busy that night. Or I could watch it with the original actors voices in the original language ad free right now streamed on the internet. Of course as I am not a criminal I will not be doing that, but those are my options.
I have a subscription to HBO... it's inconvenient to watch it on tv for me since I'm not around a tv set much and to watch it online is an unholy pain in the ass. I torrent it because its easy and there are no barriers to get in my way..I can watch at my leisure with the video application of my liking :P) I will continue to pay for HBO as long as game of thrones is on, and i will continue to torrent it as my distribution means; so even if that's not technically legal my conscious is clear.
Right now I pay $45/mo for my internet service and get basic (and I mean REALLY basic) cable bundled with that. If I want to upgrade from there, I have to first switch to digital cable (tv) then add an HBO subscription -- so you're talking another $50-$75 a month just so I can watch ten episodes of one show. Sorry, I'm not going to do that for Game of Thrones any more than I would for Robot Chicken.
To be fair, I did look all over the place for a way to purchase a subscription to the show itself or even to HBO without having to upgrade my whole cable subscription. There is nothing. Now, a year later, I can get the first season -- but sorry, it's too late; I "solved" the problem long ago.
Here in the uk Game of thrones is shown on the Sky Atlantic channel. The only way to see that channel is if your tv supplier is SkyTV, who have around 10 million subscribers nationally. My tv and internet supplier is virginmedia, and so the channel is not available to me.
I repeat: no season of Game of Thrones has been broadcast to non-sky customers. The only way for us to see GOT would be to change our supplier, and that's not always possible (sky uses a satellite receiver, building regs disallow those in many areas). It's a physical lock out.
So, I download it, because otherwise I wouldn't have the opportunity to even see series 1, never mind series 2.
It's just that now you can see nobody is watching rather than just assume everybody is.
But you still have 100% of the adverts being watched 100% as many times as before.
So how will proper itemised purchasing cause "some shows might now generate absolutely no revenue"?
I'm American. I download GOT after I watch Mad Men. I will not pay for an overpriced channel package by 1 of 4 of the cable service providers in my state, nor will I pay for the entire HBO catalog. HBO and the like, need to get with the times and allow people to pay for the shows they want to watch with various tier prices...on their website.
I already get my internet from the cable provider, and TV + HBO only cost me $5 / mo more (via a promo). I can justify the extra $5 to watch the show legally.
The FBI doesn't have jurisdiction in the Netherlands
A lot of discs come with an Interpol warning as well. What industrialized country isn't an Interpol member state?
The vast majority of people involved in TV/film production DO NOT get anything other than the salary they get whether the product is sold or not. Those who benefit from high sales are NOT THOSE PEOPLE.
The ones hurt by it are mostly not those people too. Even with rampant easy piracy, you can still make a profit better than the ROI off saving in a bank or betting on the stock market, therefore you will still put your money there, just with a lower ROI. And that means you STILL need gaffers, second boy, tea lady, et al.
They say it's intelligent to leave some jam on the bottom shelf for the little guy. I think it's right.
I would venture it's poor people who have Internet access, yet can't afford pricey cable and HBO fees. They wouldn't be buying it anyway, so there is no real loss other than your poor get a bit of "culture" (yes, let's laugh together at that one) and entertainment for free. Is that such a bad thing? Let us consider what happens if that door gets slammed on their fingers.
First it really lets them know how much of a gap there is in their lives and what little there is to do about it. They are poor, and such things as "Game of Thrones" should be beyond them. How dare they peak into where their kind can't afford? Just another little "fuck you" waved in their faces. So, instead of looking the other way when they are peaking, lets slam the door in their faces and break their little fingers.
Let them get pissed and down load bomb making instructions instead, after all, if we are going to force them to dream, lets make them dream big. Instead of watching some damned TV show and going to sleep that night on their empty stomachs, with a dream in their heads to satisfy them, lets jar them out of their dream worlds and into the hard reality of just how pathetic and fucked their worthless lives are.
By all means, lets keep fucking with the poor until they have nothing left to lose and we have it all. That always works out so well, it helps everything run so damn smoothly and we get to run headlong into progress, impeded only by mass eruptions of anarchy. There is an old saying amongst the old draconian powers; "When wringing the blood from the peasants, make sure none of your own spills." Let's not defeat the wonderful purpose of our modern "bread and circuses", by pricing it out of the hands of those it was meant to placate nor break the mechanism for it's delivery. It's so wonderful, they actually feel like they are "stealing" something and it's actually less than air, it's all an illusion via the magic of 1s and 0s. They are satisfied and their knives aren't at our throats, lets take a solid win and let sleeping dogs lie.
Take the Red Pill.
In the US, iTunes is Season 1 only. It was only made available when the Season 1 DVDs came out.
Ask yourself this question. WWJLD? (What would Jamie Lannister do)
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Yes, and the owner of HBO probably wants you to buy TNT, TBS, TCM, CNN, HLN, truTV, Cartoon Network, and the rest of the Turner package before being allowed to buy HBO.
For a while, I paid for cable, while gradually watching more shows from torrents. It was easier to control what I watch. This included very old shows and current ones. Some copied from VHS, some from digital sources.
I never cared about watching shows NOW, but did consider it a minor benefit that I got to watch the new Battlestar Galactica before my friends in the US-if I recall correctly, it was broadcast in Australia first. But, for me, it just came up on my list of shows to watch.
At one point, I moved to another apartment. I didn't really see the point in paying for cable anymore.
We're losing our evolutionary advantage to sitting in tall grasses for long periods of time, waiting for prey.
Stop using scarcity with something that is an unlimited resource.
Acting, writing, and directing are not an unlimited resource. If the first copy is several orders of magnitude more expensive than subsequent copies, how do you recommend funding the manufacture of the first copy?
Maybe if these brilliant channels got into online streaming it wouldnt be pirated...they just have to allow global streaming not restrict to to USA only. Other TV stations got the clue and now stream their shows.
"The fact that the show is only available to those who pay for an HBO subscription doesn't help either."
It's worse than that. An HBO subscription is only available with a cable subscription. That generally comes with a cable box subscription. That generally comes with an upsell for the DVR version. That generally comes with another upsell for an HD compatible box and HD DVR. All conveniently priced such that, after the initial outlay for the basic service, you'd be stupid not to add these very small and reasonable charges on top.
I'll happily pay HBO or Showtime's monthly fees for access to their HBO Go and Showtime Anywhere services. But I can't without paying another ~$60/month for a cable service I don't want.
Game of Thrones, Californication, True Blood, Dexter, they're all great shows. But they're not worth an additional three quarters of a grand a year on top of HBO and Showtime's subscriptions just to be allowed access to pay for those subscriptions.
Rome is burning.
Mind-warping entertainment is going to be easily available for as long as there is a corrupt state. It's just TOO useful and effective for controlling the masses.
If they can charge a bit for it, then fine, but you can count on it being easily available even if you're not paying a penny for it. In fact, it's really hard to *avoid* the stuff if you are so inclined.
There are only two ways we would ever find ourselves without TV/movies.
1) After some kind of apocalypse, (likely brought about because we were all too distracted by TV to turn off the gas).
2) After they find an even *better* way to keep us docile and stupid.
1. Excitedly rush to iTunes to buy Game of Thrones Season 2 - I didn't know I could buy it!
2. Discover AC is a lying, prick.
3. Return to paying criminals who actually know how to provide a service
I would love to be able to vote with my wallet. I see that's not possible through legal means, at least where I live. I hereby declare my downloads to represent a lost sale caused entirely by being unable to give money for the product I want.
to go and download last nights episode...thanks Slashdot
People keep saying it's for sale on iTunes. That's exciting! There's just one little problem...
Putting aside the season 1 vs 2 issue, here is the link Google gave me for Season 1: GoT Season 1. If anyone has a better link, please share it. Let's bend over backward trying to find an alternative to piracy, looking at the publisher's efforts in the very best light, with the assumption that there's no dishonesty and that they are actually willing to sell what people want.
The above link takes me to a page that describes season 1, but is prefaced by an ad for some application software called iTunes (wait, is "iTunes" a store or an application?). Pretty much every link on the page turns out to take me to a page that tells me to get this application, except of course it hasn't actually been ported to anything except two OSes, neither of which is what I use.
How important that is, though, I'm not sure. So far, I have not found a link to a page I fill out some web form to arrange payment and they'll then let me download a file (which I assume would work in mplayer (ideally) or vlc or something). That doesn't mean the web page doesn't exist, merely that google and bing and wikipedia and hbo.com's own pages don't know about this link yet, so I don't know it either. Does anyone have it? Just because I can't find it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Maybe I'm an idiot.
I'll consider the publishing of this link to be HBO's Open For Business sign, even if they are trying to hide it. I know lots of businesses with truly shitty marketing, which are nevertheless intended as for-profit businesses. How an entertainment company could be one of them, I don't know, but that's beside the point. Maybe they just need our help. Anyone got the link?
Has anyone bought the GoT files from Apple without having to use a special client? How did you do it? Got an URL?
Some people have mentioned Amazon, but all I have found over there (so far!) is a shitty Flash streaming service.
This particular defect in Amazon may be totally irrelevant, of course. Amazon does, in fact, sell music in a variety of ways that work excellently and require no bizarre player or client. They sell CDs, every one of which has been compatible with cdparanoia, and they also sell downloadable mp3s (which aren't what I prefer, but are good enough). I just can't find where the sell the video files, though. (And the Blu-Ray discs they sell have DRM, so it's illegal to read them, in addition to being a pain in the ass. So please, let's not talk about Blu-Ray discs until that tech becomes ready.)
Has anyone bought the GoT files from Amazon without having to use a special client? How did you do it? Got an URL?
It all sounds so promising, as though HBO were really open for business. But either they keep failing to close the deal, or I'm too dumb to see where they do it, or somewhere in the middle where we're just not communicating. What's going on?
On thing's for sure, though: the premise where we look at HBO in the best light and assume they are honestly trying to sell the product, does require they are at least up to mid-1990s tech for their store. Somewhere there's gotta be a page where I can give payment info (whether it's credit card info or what .. maybe HBO is too smalltime so they only take paypal, and if so, that's acceptable for now, and maybe they can their little startup out of the garage over the next year) and they will let me download the file. The post I'm replying to comes close to implying this is possible, but stops short of actually saying it, fading into weird terminology ("open iTunes"). Surely someone is about to give me the huge enlightenment+smackdown by posting the mystery URL.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Wow, can't avoid forums for a week? Can't do something else for a WHOLE WEEK? It must be somebody else's fault! You can get books 1-4 as a set for $20 right now ($10 second hand on ebay). Who needs to wait hours for one single episode when you can read at your leisure any time?
You want my impulse buy money? No? Well then STFU.
What you chose to mock however, isn't a problem for us. It's an ex-problem. We solved it with downloading the damn shows.
The media companies have the 'problem' - or so they say.
Speaking of self-control, have you ever considered applying any and not trolling folk irrelevant crap?
Because no money for an HBO subscription [nt]
I have lot's of interests, but little time to indulge them all.
A while back I discovered I could watch series and movies at 1.5x speed, with sound(!), on my PS3 and even faster using the VLC media player (on my Mac). Once you're used to the 'faster' sound, you hardly notice the difference (or at least I don't).
Regular TV does not offer me the option for faster playback, so for me downloading is the only option even if I could watch the slow show through 'legal channels'.
or a HBO equivalent which you might not get for less no money in some countries. Not even on Satellite.
So i like the show... I don't like to get spoilers before i watch it...
If i want to watch it here in Sweden i have to wait ~1 year before it gets shown... So the only way i can enjoy it is to pirate it... I would love the option of being able to buy it for a reasonable price..... I would love to not having to resort to things that are considered illegal...
Another thing about shows here in Sweden is that it's never sure that the show will actually find it's way here... So i have 2 options..
1. Wait 1-3 years and not being sure if it will ever get here and then maybe be able to buy it..
2. Download it a few days after release and enjoy it without commercials and spoilers..
I would be more than happy to pay say $10-15 per month to view all the shows i like without commercials..... But i want it less than 2 weeks delay from being first aired.. I watch around 5-10 shows per week depending on the time of year with all those season-breaks etc... So on average maybe 4-6 shows per week.. Ie ~$2.5 per episode... But what i do want is some extras like 4 free episodes on each series so i can decide if i actually like the series and i do want them in a format i can use on whatever playback device i want to use... No crappy DRM and/or web-browser only crap..
What i would prefer would actually not to be a per episode pricing, but a view all you want for X amount because then i have the possibility to view whatever i would like... new or old series, it's all there without the need to buy each episode... See Spotify as an example... perfect layout..
I want to use the HBO Go, but they require that you subscribe to an entire cable package of garbage, for a least $45/month, not counting the $15/month charge, for HBO.
Download the episodes and watch them all at once, back to back?
Others will not be able to afford Cable, may have to wait to view the current episode, or have no digital availability in "your region" etc.
Make these shows available worldwide, at the same time digitally and otherwise and piracy will drop.
Or at any rate, those that pirate will not have been customers able or willing to purchase in the first place.
I'd love to know what countries pirate game of thrones the most, whether it is the United States, or countries outside the US.
What the MPAA and the Networks have yet to explain is why:
A) I pay as much or More for my cable television living outside the US?
B) The US Channels including HBO, Showtime (simply not available), Starz, Discovery, National Geographic and educational channels show premium recent shows and the channels I get outside the United States show older series and movies?
C) Why I speak English yet I am lumped in Latin America where many shows are in Spanish with no subtitles, and foreign language films are unwatchable because there are no subtitles.
D) My Cable companies publicised that they tried to negotiate with US firms to allow them to show the US Feeds and were told that they simply were not available outside the US, fullstop. Pay a million, pay 40 million...they aren't available, take this content which we package for you because we have already shown it to our own people.
E) Why does Netflix Latin America lack over 25,000 movies and series titles that are available on Netflix USA, but I pay the same subscription fee?
F) Why is the content on Hulu not available worldwide?
G) Why can I pay 800USD for an iPhone, 250USD for a Kindle Fire, and 800USD for an iPad but I can't purchase the latest apps or add my credit card to the iTunes store because I do not live in the United States?
H) Why can I purchase a Kindle Touch but cannot purchase over 30,000 books because I am not a US citizen? Why when the Kindle was first available was I paying a dollar more for every book purchase from Amazon?
I) Why are unabridged DVD and BluRay collections in some cases available only in the United States? Why is Amazon prevented from shipping them outside the US?
I'd love a follow up question to the so called "authorities" as to why Foreigners are made to pay more for substandard services and products (in my view, showing old movies at current prices is a scam) and this is not considered a violation of Trade agreements. Under WTO agreements you cannot sell a higher quality product to your own citizens and create an inferior product for export (and especially not at the same price).
Answer those questions, and then we can start talking about why non-US citizens (i.e. the other 6.7 BILLION people in the world) may pirate content when they may be able to afford the products.
Secondly, take a look at this Oatmeal comic which brings the point home as well: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
Sorry, no sympathy for an industry that made record breaking profits last year while crying about how much money it was losing, and doing its best in my view to racketeer profits from overseas markets through an opaque system of IP licensing and distribution.
-Gel214th
I don't think there currently even is a legal way to watch the show in my country. I watch the pirate version now and purchase the Blu-Ray when it becomes available.
True in general, but a surprising number of women I've met enjoyed "300".
Why do you need this explained to you?
A) HBO is a premium channel. People do not want to pay for a premium channel to watch a show 12 weeks of the year and hope something else might come on that makes it worth it.
B) People have lives. We do not like being tethered to our TV on the night an episode airs.
Most of television pirating occurs for additional reasons to the two I mentioned above.
C) Shows either take forever to be released in different markets, or, the manner and time frame in which they are released, or the pricing model is terrible. Example:
Lost blu-ray: 200 dollars. BSG blu-ray: 200 dollars (prices are lower right now because of sales). ST Voyager DVD boxset: 100 ish dollars, same with all box sets. This is on top of the fact that you have to wait absolutely forever and then you have the pleasure of them releasing multiple versions of box sets. It's not that people don't want to purchase the physical item, they do.
Viv La Piratebay
My ISP is Timewarner. They were able to tell the exact file and time I downloaded from Torrent Freak. I was sent a strongly worded letter which said I would be banned from my ISP if I coninued downloading their content from the torrent site. I guess I'll be waiting until next year to get season 2 of GOT. I too face a 50-60 a month increase if I want to upgrade to an HBO level cable subscription.
What for? When the episode is readily available worldwide a few hours after airing in the US there is no point to regional sub-forums etc.
It is not the viewers that needs to adapt to the corporate overlords, it is the corporations that needs to adapt to their customers if they still want to have a market, if they don't the viewers will find alternate routes as is readily apparent by this discussion.
A friend of mine- who gets HBO- often pirates it (Game of Thrones) - he has a DVR on one TV- but not in the bedroom- where he likes to watch it to keep the nudity away from the kids. Another DVR will cost him- forget- but certainly not free-
Its just easier to Bit torrent the damn thing.
I used to pirate Doctor Who when it took weeks or months to get to the US- but now that its on BBC America at the same time (well- baring the Earth's rotation) - I just watch it on my set.
It's an ancient technology, still used by the elderly
We just had this discussion in a meeting at work today, when the "old folks" were the only ones who had cable. The main reason I have cable is for ESPN (and for the handful of network shows, that the networks don't show online)
There really isn't a good (HD) option for watching sports, but ESPN (and the other sports networks). Now I know a some people thing that sports are stupid, (and those same people probably spends lots of time and money play World of Warcraft, so...) But that isn't relevant, as we all have different tastes in entertainment
iTunes is 2 Episodes behind.
So, you are upset about one week delay?
How about one year?
Game of thrones as just appeared in the Portuguese/EU this year, and it was like 2 months ago..
And you better have cable/sat tv or you wont see anything in the free tv channels!
I have an HBO subscription, I live in the US, I can stream right from HBO. A few weeks ago I missed an episode and decided to watch it on my laptop at work. The problem I ran into was my cell phone had limited download speed and couldn't watch it in HD on HBO's website. If I tried it would just load and pause, load and pause. So went to a torrent site set it up to download and watched it in HD when it was done with no lag.
It's all about availability, I don't have HBO or cable television so I have to either wait for DVDs or Netflix. I don't see why I have to pay a cable provider for 100 different channels I have no interest in when I want to watch a handful of shows. The industry has to start thinking about individually packaging and selling series like this instead of forcing you to buy into everything at once. If HBO or Showcase had their own streaming service, like Netflix or Hulu, I'd signup in heartbeat.
The people who make this could make money NOW if they wanted to. They don't want to. Then they lose it.
People want it know - just because you are so layabout who can't be bothered to take part in the world doesn't mean you matter , you are a tiny minority.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Funny, I just checked itunes and it sells for 3.99 per episode. But only for season 1, so if you want to see season 2 you are apparently out of luck. Oh look latest episode in hidef and I can download it in a couple of minutes. Thank you pirate bay!
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Since the word "fan" in the context of enjoying something a lot is a shortened version of the word fanatic, I would say he's describing pretty much the same thing.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
most people that download (pirate) original programming found on premium (subscription) networks is because they're too fucking cheap to pay for the necessary service(s) (here, a few hrs from chicago, it's a minimum of $75 monthly* to get hbo/max/sho/starz via cable) to watch them legitimately.. or are not only too cheap but also too impatient to wait and pay for the whole-season dvd releases when they become available.
* $25 basic cable, $5 digital receiver, $15 per premium (hbo+max | sho+tmc | starz+enc)
I remember back when I was watching Lost. This was the last show that I watched on broadcast TV when I had friends and colleagues in the US watching it. We were a few days behind the US for most episodes. After a specific episode, one of the non-media related websites I read had a headline to the effect of "Why Charlie had to die in the season finale of Lost". This wasn't a TV news site, and it was a headline, not a line in a story. It was almost impossible to miss.
The writers / creators of that show put some (debatable!) amount of effort into creating a story and telling that story, but due to their US centric view of broadcasting, it was ruined for thousands of people around the world.
i bought all the books. read them 3 times through. then bought all the audio books. i'm a fan, and i think i'm pretty supportive.
but i'm not going to get cable/satellite for 1 show. and i'm certainly not paying HBO another $35 a month on top of that, just for 1 show. i call them all the time to offer them money. just to let them know i still have dollars i want to give them, if only they'd let me watch the one and only TV show i want to watch. but they always say no. i have absolutely no interest in anything else on TV, cable, or whatever other crap HBO is showing these days. i just want my Game of Thrones, and i don't want to wait a year for it.
also, it is not available online where i live for money. i'd pay any reasonable price. but it IS available online for free.
HBO has failed to collect my money. maybe i'm justifying things? but i see this as HBO's fail.
I don't have TV, at all. I don't have cable even less so. I think this series is brilliant, but to watch it I have to find a friend who has cable and be there when it airs.
In a world with such ubiquitous connectivity and an already existing HBO-GO infrastructure, as well as netflix streaming and whatnot - it's flatly stupid that I can't pay for these episodes and watch them - which I would gladly do.
I want to support this kind of thing being made but I have no way to do that.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
It would cost me an addition $30 a month to get HBO added to my cable/internet conbo, via the various packages. That works out to roughly 8 bucks a show, considering 4 shows a month. How much would I be willing to pay for HBOgo? Netflix is ~8. Would I pay $15? Or is the real value of HBO $30/mo?
What would you pay for HBOgo if you could buy it directly?
Excuse me, but what planet are you living on? I live in Canada too, and unless you're living in the Arctic circle, there is no way these figures are right.
Here are the rough costs in Eastern Ontario, to do what you want, assuming you have a television set but don't have the receiver or cable service.
1. Purchase a cable or satellite system package (fees vary) - around $50/month
2. Select a package with HBO - around $10-15/month
3. Rent or buy a receiver with DVR abilities (about $15-20/month for rental, about $350 for purchase)
4. If you want HD, get HD - around $10 per month.
You would NOT have to spend close to a thousand dollars to watch Game of Thrones. In fact, if you rented instead of purchased (which with a lot of the DVR receivers is the better way to go due to a lot of them being on the flakey side), you could do it for as little as $110 per month.
Seriously, dude, I own an HD receiver (non-DVR), and I get cable and HBO, and I'm paying less than $100 per month - and drowning in on-demand while I'm at it (which, by the way, each episode of Game of Thrones is available on about two days after its first airing).
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
let the little studios sell direct streams to the customer, they'd probably profit more once they make a good show... im suprised i havnt bumped into it yet... oh well.. i seen the future. call me a prophet.. or profit.. :p
Such a good one. I’d like to read a bit more concerning this matter. good luck to you guys.
Thank you to
http://www.daffodilsw.com/android-application-development
And the problem is not just release staggering for some products. It's just plain rip-off the foreigners.
Example: I'm in europe. When Windows 7 was released I liked it enough to buy a copy. The following prices are for the Pro version back then:
Buy it on a US site like Amazon US for $200,- but they will not ship outside US (there's the zoning again!). $200,- was about euro 140,- back then
Buy it on any european site for euro 300,-, no less.
Right. So I asked around for a couple of weeks and found a friend traveling to the US and you can guess the rest.
Hey America, it's not like we here in Europe earn twice the wages you know.
I'm an american living abroad and I buy everything I watch through my US iTunes account except Game of Thrones. Why? Because we get every HBO show months or years later. In the meantime, everyone at work has already seen it. I did finally buy Season 1 on iTunes, but that was well after I watched it.
Don't watch the damn shows. Fuck pop cultural. Yes, it might be a great show but there are so many more important things that need to be discussed. Don't watch it on HBO, don't discuss it, and don't pirate it. When their ratings drop to 0 and when they have no more income they will listen. Companies only listen to one thing YOUR WALLET. Vote with your fucking wallet.
That's not love, that's marketing.
Absolutely. The difference is simple, too: it's marketing if you "love" something that cannot love you back.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Hey, I'd pay good money to see dominoes thrown at cats (as long I didn't have to wait a week to see it)
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