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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."
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.
I'm Australian, I have Sattelite TV (foxtel) for $70 a month (because my wife and kids like it), and don't have access to watch Game of Thrones and Fringe, the two shows I actually give a fuck about. If I want to watch Game of Thrones, I need to upgrade to the $100/month package, and then watch it at the time they specify.
Fuck that. I pirate Game of Thrones, and Fringe and buy the box sets when they come out.
... wait, what?
And is it really such a horrible hardship to go to the bathroom during the FBI warning?
Is it really so unbelievable to you that people don't feel they should have to sit through that bullshit if they actually paid for the fucking product like they're supposed to? Unskippable commercials and previews, ridiculously long animated menus...I click my pirated file and the episode starts, immediately.
My pirated copies of the first season of Game of Thrones don't have any of that bullshit on them, they're in a file format and in a codec that is recognized on every device I have, and will play on literally any device I have without a bunch of stupid bullshit DRM standing in the way. They are literally a superior product in every single way.