HBO Says Game of Thrones Piracy Is "a Compliment"

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"

Comments

No shit

[phizi0n]

Finally a suit that understands piracy HELPS more than it hurts, especially when the legal means of consuming the content is limited to few regions of the world.

Re:No shit

[jfengel]

The question is whether more piracy would help the show more. He presumably would like somebody to actually pay for what appears to be a fairly expensive show to produce. A little piracy is free advertising; universal piracy kills the bottom line.

So he may well decide that the current amount of piracy is a boon, but would continue to suppress pirates to the full extent of his ability and the law, to keep it from being any bigger than it is. He could easily eliminate piracy by seeding the torrents himself, and telling everybody that it was OK to take it from there. But I doubt that even this "enlightened" suit will do that, nor would he if he were permitted to.

I suppose he might try to depend on subscriptions from people who decided they wanted to get it via HBO's regular distribution channels anyway, though it seems unlikely.

Re:No shit

[Sarten-X]

Finally a Slashdotter that understands piracy both helps and also hurts, especially when the legal means of consuming the content covers most of the intended market.

Re:No shit

[Dahamma]

People pirate it because the only way to watch it legally is to subscribe to HBO. Their business model induces the piracy.

Their business model induces piracy about as much as a woman's clothing induces rape. Pirate the show if you want (clearly the harm is much lower/almost non-existant) but don't pretend it's the content owner's fault you did it.

Re:No shit

[Anonymous Coward]

People won't wait, even if you might. This is a fact. Any suggested alternative to piracy must account for that.

Re:No shit

[ScentCone]

Their business model induces the piracy.

No, people who want to have some entertainment on their own terms, without paying for it, "induce" the piracy. No, they don't even "induce," they simply "commit" it. They can't be troubled to wait for a DVD or to grab it through Amazon, etc. No... they have to have it RIGHT NOW, because they are entitled to being entertained by the work of other people who spend millions of dollars.

Induce. Oh, please.

Yeah, yeah. And people who wear overpriced basketball shoes in the wrong part of down are inducing other people to shoot them in the head to take them, too. Is this inductive reasoning you're using, here?

HBO is asking for it, man! Did you see that short skirt that HBO was wearing?

Re:No shit

[Areyoukiddingme]

Copyrights (and patents) harm everyone except those monied interests you mention at the end of your post.

I could stop right there, with that observation, but there's more to be added.

These tax schemes with shell corporations in Ireland and the Cayman Islands only work because "client" corporations in America pay the shell corporations all of their profit. The mechanism they use to justify any number and every number they wish to use? Royalties. Copyright and patent royalties. The tax fraud being perpetuated relies on the ability to pay a bogus "licensing fee" to the shell corporation. This number is anything the perpetrator wants it to be, "negotiated" on the spot to whatever is most convenient to enable the fraud. And it's legal.

Any significant blow to copyright or patents runs the risk of ruining the game, hence copyright and patents must be protected and extended at all costs, population and culture be damned.

Not to put too fine a point on it but... "Follow the money."

An ideea

[tracius01]

HBO should put top quality torrents on TPB

Awesome

[ceoyoyo]

I'd sign up for HBO if there was a way to do so without paying my cable provider an obscene amount of money for Flip This Nanny and Douchebags Live Together 14 as well.

Maybe I'll mail them a donation.

HBO Gets it Right

[ohnocitizen]

And we should reward them. This is EXACTLY what we want content producers to say. Let's buy the shit out of their DVD's, and publicize the series even more. Let's support companies that take the right stance.

Re:HBO Gets it Right

[ohnocitizen]

We should also, in a friendly way, urge them to have their content delivery more closely match the spirit of their PR. If they are OK with piracy that's great! Are they still issuing complaints? Fans would LOVE more ways to pay for their content. Are there viable means for them to make it more available? Fans want the series to make a ton of money, so it continues (and we get more tasty battle sequences). How much more revenue could they secure if they made it easier to purchase? (Relevant).

Re:HBO Gets it Right

[dubbreak]

How much more revenue could they secure if they made it easier to purchase? (Relevant).

Exactly. If he's concerned about image quality, then why not offer downloads that are up to his standards at a price that's so good it's easier to pay it and get a guaranteed good DL.

Heck, run their own private (pay for) torrent site and they can avoid some bandwidth costs. Or free official torrents with an advert or two at the begining (which they should get some revenue off or).

There are ways to monetize free viewers. I stream a few shows from the comedy network (Workaholics mainly, since they have the latest episodes) an I don't mind the ad interruptions.

Word of Mouth

[Mystakaphoros]

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

Re:Funny that...

[war4peace]

A 400 MB file? Crappy quality. That's why you received the notification: "stop sharing shitty quality episodes!"

And he is right

[gweihir]

The difference is that some people actually look at the facts first, like this guy. He is not the first to notice that with a good product aimed at a target audience that can pay does not suffer from unauthorized noncommercial (!) copying, but profits.

The typical attitude is the greed-inspired "This is ours! They are stealing!", reinforced by stupidity. The fact of the matter is that "copyright" is an artificial construct. The only thing that is an actual natural right is to be identified as the creator of a work. Copyright was introduced in England, because commercial piracy, perpetrated by printers and publishers lead to the actual creator of works not making money anymore. As to whether creators of works should be compensated at all, the time-honored answer is that if the audience liked it, some of them will give. And that has to be enough. It was for countless centuries. Turns out that in the Internet age, it is even easier to find people that are willing to pay for works of art when not forced to. And there are (by now pretty strong) indicators that not forcing people to pay actually increases total revenue for works of good quality. There are also indicators that works of bad quality suffer, and that is the real beef of the copyright fascists: They have gotten so used to be able to force bad quality on people and have them pay-before-consume (an entirely unnatural model for entertainment) that they want to keep that despicable model at all cost.

Buy HBO content on iTunes

[SuperKendall]

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.