I can see that. When people discuss shows they watch, they make recommendations. Some of the recommendations, particularly early ones, come from pirates, who prompt non-pirates to spend money.
I’m more interested in the economic impact than moral implications, if we can keep the thread away from arguments in the vein of “all piracy is wrong/freedom wants to be free”.
Petrarca may be in a good position to benefit from piracy-- his show’s on a pay channel (restricting the size of the original audience), the genre is appealing to pirates (at least the sort of pirates I know), and the production values and intricate storyline might make consumers favor buying the show in a quality format. Piracy could still be a drain on revenues for other shows or the network as a whole.
Well, if everyone pirated, no one would bother subscribing to HBO and they’d make zero dollars. So obviously there is a point at which piracy becomes detrimental.
I can see an argument that if there’s only mild piracy, with mainly poorer people that wouldn’t subscribe to HBO anyway’s doing the pirating, that creates a much wider “cultural buzz”, which encourages people that can afford it to subscribe. I’m not sure how you’d go about proving that’s the case, though.
In that way its sort of like the debate over paywalls for places like the New York Tmies. Obviously they want people to subscribe to read their content, but they also realize that people are encouraged to subscribe by the fact that NYT articles are discussed and linked far beyond the subsciber base. So they set up a pourus paywall, which is easily circumventable, but provides enough of a guilt trip that people who can pay often do so.
But in any case, a director is probably interested in his production seeing the widest audience and the most buzz possible, while HBO is more interested in maximizing income. So I tend to take HBO’s word over the directors.
Pretty sure “freedom wants to be free”. Won’t argue whether “information wants to be free”
Part of my problem with the anti-piracy argument is trying to count all downloads as a loss sale. For instance, I once downloaded a Hilary Swank movie about some biblical plague. No way in hell I would have ever paid to watch it. I was mildly interested in it but my suspicions were it would suck. It did. A lot.
That doesn’t mean I should have downloaded it but it’s still not a loss for the rights holders.
As an aside, releasing the movie may have caused losses because I haven’t watched a Hilary Swank movie since.
Well, HBO is like 200.00 a year. Season 1 of Game of Thrones is like $30.00. Assuming the Seasons of the other shows are similarily priced, your basically paying 100.00 to be able to watch the episodes as they air instead of waiting for them to be released on DVD.
Doesn’t seem to be worth it to me, but YMMV. Obviously people do pay for HBO, so someone must find it worth the money.
I was mildly joking, there are others in my house that may watch it more. And since I DO pay, it must have some value.
On topic, I watch those shows on HBO if I tell someone I like those shows and that person decides to download them instead of getting HBO or waiting on a DVD how much is HBO losing? If the person was never going to get HBO or buy the DVD?
Sure, someone can say then the person that did download the show shouldn’t have. Granted, but the question is how much did piracy hurt?
I’d say HBO’s actual losses happen when subscribers decide to cancel because they can get the content for free elsewhere by means legal or not. HBO suffers a potential loss when people decide against subscribing because the content they’re after can be had for free.
This. Put it on regular Hulu and add all the ads they want. It’s still less of a PITA than piracy. Just show the past five eps, like other shows on Hulu. And don’t be too concerned about killing the goose when it comes out on DVD. The people who buy complete series are usually superfans who’d get them anyway.
Game of Thrones DVD and Bluray sales are through the roof (240,000 first day). I’m sure a large portion of those people are the same that pirate it. Mitigates a lot of the pain they might feel from so much piracy.
As I understand it, a lot of Game of Throne piracy is from non-US areas where there is an artificial delay in the broadcast. Due to whatever long-existing licensing agreements HBO has, the new episode might be broadcast a week after the US broadcast. But in the internet age, people want to participate in forum threads and whatnot. So they pirate it so that they can see it at around the same time and not get left behind in their online discussions, but that may not impact overall revenue too much.
Yea, I always wonder why they delay the release of commercial programs overseas. It seems like a strategy designed to ensure people will pirate your stuff. IIRC, Australia had by far the highest rate of pirating Game of Thrones, and also the longest lag time before a new episdoe was aired. Seems like a no-brainer to make sure episodes are aired everywhere within a day or so of each other.
The people who count piracy don’t factor this. Every torrent is considered a lost sale when crying to Congress, even though they know that it is simply untrue.
A smart company would maximize its ability to monetize its product. The entertainment industry is not smart, and prefers to treat paying customers like criminals.
Absolutely, most people I know will pirate nearly all HBO blockbusters well before Australian cable or free to air shows them.
Interestingly Survivor and a few shows are a bit different as they come out pretty quick after the USA. Matter of hours in fact.
I would love to purchase Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire etc if they released the DVD’s earlier but as it is the delay is just way too long so off I go.
I think piracy can be helpful. I’m not paying for HBO because I can’t just order HBO. I’d have to pay for about 80 other channels I have zero interest in watching to get HBO, and it’s just not worth it. If I had never pirated Game of Thrones, I never would have bought both seasons on Blu-ray. I also never would have bought all 5 books (but that just helps Martin, not HBO). I never would have recommended Game of Thrones to half a dozen different people. Without piracy HBO would not have gotten a cent from me.
