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HBO Says Game of Thrones Piracy Is "a Compliment"

Posted by samzenpus on from the piracy-is-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery dept.

An anonymous reader writes "HBO programming president Michael Lombardo not only says that illegal downloading of Game of Thrones isn't hurting the show, but goes so far as to say it's 'a compliment' and worries about the image quality of pirated copies"

7 of 447 comments (clear)

  1. Funny that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Funny that, someone I know got this...

    We have received a DMCA file sharing complaint and the date, time, and IP address provided matches the date, time, and IP address was in use. Illegal file sharing is against our terms of service and we cannot ignore DMCA take-down requests, as such we kindly ask you to stop sharing said files to comply with this request. Please note repeated offences may result in permanent suspension.

    ####
    Reference: xxx-xxxx
    Title: Game of Thrones
    Infringement Source: BitTorrent
    Infringement Timestamp: 2012-x-x x:x:x
    Infringing Filename: Game of Thrones S02E08 xxxx
    Infringing File size: 405105216
    Infringers IP Address: x.x.x.x

    ####

  2. Word of Mouth by Mystakaphoros · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Honestly, if it weren't for downloading, I don't think I would have even heard of the show.

  3. Buy HBO content on iTunes by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd sign up for HBO if there was a way to do so without paying my cable provider

    That's why I buy Game of Thrones on iTunes. HBO gets money, and morally I am justified in downloading shows before they are released on iTunes.

    It's a more direct form of donation as I don't really watch the other HBO content at this time. If they ever did unleash HBO GO to anyone that wanted to pay for it I might subscribe that way.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  4. If it wasn't for piracy I would have never watched by davydagger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If it wasn't for finding Game of Thrones on the internet, I would have never found the show.

    Being that its on HBO, a premium channel, I would never have never even know about it.

  5. "No we haven't sent out the game of thrones police by Riceballsan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Umm... a threat I got from my cable company saying a report from HBO puts one strike on my account... leads me to believe the opposite. They almost certainly do have a team sniffing torrents and issuing complaints with internet service providers.

  6. Re:No shit by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    especially when the legal means of consuming the content covers most of the intended market

    Uh, perhaps they should intend a bit more then?

    Really, this is starting to piss me off. Where I live it is basically impossible to legally watch anything but "America's Next Top Model" and "Extreme Reconstruction" on expensive internet set-top box TV or buy buying decade old series I've already watched on DVD for ridiculously high prizes. No new series, no legal streaming, no working cinema on demand. You can't imagine how gladly I would pay for being able to watch a series or movie on my PC in halfway good quality... in English without subtitles, not synchronized or with letters smeared all over the picture. But no, apparently it's just totally impossible to set up reliable streaming outside the US in a country where just about everyone has a 100Mb fiber optics connection.

  7. Re:No shit by nametaken · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You win all the cookies for today.

    I think of it like an Adobe and Microsoft approach. Don't make anything too hard to pirate, because you want kids and emerging markets using your products. Hook 'em so you'll be the standard.

    Maybe later you bitch that nobody pays for anything and release the hounds. But mindshare comes in at priority #1.