I think you're dead on.
I can't speak for Rome because I haven't seen a single episode of it. However, after downloading and watching the first few episodes of Entourage, another HBO original, I decided to subscribe to HBO just so I could see the new episodes on Sunday when they came out and not 2-4 days later when the Bittorrent became available. In my case not only did the show gain a viewer, but HBO gained a paid customer.
Like others I continued to download the episodes as I watched them so that I could go back and watch past episodes at my convenience. I do this with many shows.
The industry wants to make it seem as cut and dry as everyone is either a customer or a pirate, the truth is that it's just not that simple.
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I think you're dead on. I can't speak for Rome because I haven't seen a single episode of it. However, after downloading and watching the first few episodes of Entourage, another HBO original, I decided to subscribe to HBO just so I could see the new episodes on Sunday when they came out and not 2-4 days later when the Bittorrent became available. In my case not only did the show gain a viewer, but HBO gained a paid customer. Like others I continued to download the episodes as I watched them so that I could go back and watch past episodes at my convenience. I do this with many shows. The industry wants to make it seem as cut and dry as everyone is either a customer or a pirate, the truth is that it's just not that simple.