Piracy Doesn’t Hurt Game of Thrones, Director Says

Ernesto
February 27, 2013
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game of thrones,
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With millions of downloads per episode Game of Thrones was by far the most pirated TV-show of last year. However, according to the show’s director, David Petrarca, these unauthorized downloads actually do more good than harm. Petrarca explains that the show needs “cultural buzz” to thrive and survive, and this buzz is being generated in part by pirates.

With 4.3 million downloads per episode, Game of Thrones was the most pirated TV-show on the Internet last year.

To a certain degree one could claim that HBO is to blame for Game of Thrones’ high piracy rates.

They want to keep access to the show “exclusive” and even Netflix wasn’t able to buy the rights for a huge sum of money. Combined with delayed airing in many parts of the world, these restrictions are the main reason why so many people chose to download the show illegally.

However, according to the show’s director David Petrarca these elevated piracy levels are not necessarily a bad thing. When he was confronted with TorrentFreak’s download statistics, he suggested that piracy may do more good than harm.

Petrarca responded by saying that all these unauthorized downloads don’t matter because shows such as Game of Thrones thrive on “cultural buzz” and benefit from the social commentary they generate.

“That’s how they survive,” he said during a panel discussion at the University of Western Australia.

In other words, the director believes that the buzz created by pirates puts the show on the radar and eventually leads people to buy HBO subscriptions.

Whether it is the best decision in terms of revenue has yet to be seen. It’s clear that HBO prefers more exclusiveness over less piracy, but this can be a dangerous game in the long run.

HBO might make decent money by selling subscriptions now, but the limited availability also breeds pirates. One has to wonder how easy it is to convert these people to subscriptions once they have experienced BitTorrent.

The notion that piracy broadens the audience is not new in the TV-industry. Half a decade ago “Heroes” and “Lost” co-producer Jesse Alexander already told us that BitTorrent pirates helped these shows to grow and that TV networks should move away from artificial restrictions.

The third season of Game of Thrones starts next month, and we have a feeling that some piracy records will be broken again, generating some much-needed cultural buzz.

Game of Thrones Season 3

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625

Thanks David! He’s actually sensible. Who knew?
- luke I am your cousin
  
  His agenda is to have a financially successful and awesome show.
  
  Unlike the MPAA who…
  Want power and lobby politicians to get it.
  Attack people because they break the rules of imaginary property that they created.
  Destroy peoples lives to send a message to not defy them.
  Lie and produce propaganda to further their agenda of control.
  
  etc….etc….
  
  Different agendas.
  It is refreshing to hear a director that hasn’t been tainted by the MAFIAA propaganda machine.
- FreeYouNiverse
  
  This reminds me the case when Bandai Entertainment and Kadokawa Shoten, Japanese companies, thanked “fansub watchers” on the official website from one of their anime series, which its title is: “Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu”.
  
  The message said this:
  “Very Special Thanks: All fansub lovers who buy the official DVDs and help to support more creative works”.
  
  That happened a few years ago, the anime was very popular on internet (world wide) in those days, then it was licensed in USA after that “cultural buzz”. If somebody doesn’t know, a fansub is people, not related with production, who translate and make subtitles for a movie or series and upload their works to internet.
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Joakim Koed

You guys think MPAA said okay to this statement? :D
- Who
  
  this is an HBO show and HBO has no affiliation with the MPAA
  - Joakim Koed
    
    I know it is, but statements like these must piss off MPAA, because they tend to say the opposite.
    - Who
      
      the MPAA has bitched about sharing there content for years and are now trying to sue people out site of the courts illegally. so I am sure this statement has pissed them off. the MPAA sure as hell don’t care about how the law applies to fair use as they call fair use something else. so who really gives a fuck what the MPAA thinks?
    - Says it all
      
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21601602
    - Who
      
      LOL and the RIAA has said other wise.same with the MPAA. people are getting sick of getting threatened on the web so they are securing there connections so no one can see there activity’s. so that’s Y they say piracy is down, no one can find them.
    - Manne Monvall
      
      correlation doesn’t mean causality, or if it’s the other way around
      
      also: I should rly get off my ass and study statistics..
    - djnforce9
      
      Agreed. The MPAA likes their monopoly and the ability to determine when, where, and how content is distributed. Having a system in place that essentially replaces them is not something they have willingly embraced as it threatens their business model’s very existence. In short, we don’t need them any longer and hopefully they bleed their resources dry trying to fight evolving technology so they don’t bother us any longer. Same goes for the RIAA and any other (now useless) major distributor.
  - Ray186
    
    It’s already been proven by how HBO releases / distributes the show following season 1. HBO in Australia thought that it would be cute to release season 1′s episodes a week after they had aired in the U.S. Starting with season 2 they were made available on HBO on-demand immediately following their airing in the U.S.
Guest

of course it doesn’t!
ya dingus
Anon44

/me Awaits the back-peddling and claims of being misunderstood after HBO and the MAFIAA contact him and put on the pressure….
- ITakeAPotatoChipAndEatIt
  
  ^ This.
- Gene Poole
  
  You heard it here first…
  
  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130227/08153622137/game-thrones-director-im-100-opposed-to-piracy-i-just-said-helps-my-show-survive.shtml
mischief_

did they actually stop to think about releasing it on torrents for a charge?
- Joakim Koed
  
  How would you charge people for that?
  - DoobyDoo
    
    They should charge one.. hundred.. BILLION DOLLARZ *Dr Evil*
  - Anyone
    
    Easy. Pay money, receive link to torrent file. It would get them some direct income from torrents – more than they currently receive ;)
  - MadAsASnake
    
    There are plenty of Chinese Authors who do exactly that for indie ebooks. I guess it must pay well enough or they wouldn’t bother.
- http://twitter.com/Effec_Tor Effector
  
  HBO should stream their content for a reasonable subscription fee and not have it region blocked.
  - Montisaquadeis
    
    Not just that but allow it alacart as well for those that have cut all cords to cable and satellite.
  - tpguy
    
    streaming is still only for wealthy peoples with a good pipe. Downloading is better because it allows one poor guy to download it from lets say and internet cafe, and then give it to the other trailer park folks manually.
Guest

“pick up the bones but leave my soul aaaaaolne” 8)
Ignas

Finally someone had learned how internet and piracy works. Cudos to that director for being honest about what brings him fame and money.
http://twitter.com/xpl0iter Plato P.

Now he officially made it into the hit-list of MPAA. And who knows, he might have made it to the hit-list of OBAMA itself by this attitude!
- Andyman
  
  Don’t you mean OWEbama?
IDIOCRACY

I will be glad to be of service :D hehe
http://identi.ca/LauRoman Laurențiu Roman

I doesn’t hurt GOT because almost all of them already got their money. It would only hurt HBO’s bottom line. People are reading way too much into statements like these.

Same thing for House of cards. Piracy wouldn’t hurt them in the us or countries where Netflix is available. Where it isn’t available and the show is serialized, that is where they’ll have trouble. But those countries usually buy season 2-3 years after because they are a lot cheaper.
- Zumzum
  
  Funny, because I just read a friend’s status update on Facebook saying that he’d just finished watching the first season of GOT and he liked it so much he was going out to buy the box set of Season 2. Another sale chalked up to piracy…
icec0ld

In other news: Oxygen! You need it to live! More on the obvious at 11
Jon from Finland

The cultural buzz is already there for GoT. Now it’s time to support the creators. Subscribe HBO. Buy DVDs or BRs. I have no probrem ‘pirating’ stuff, but we must also remember to support those who but all the hard work for these shows/movies.
- http://twitter.com/Effec_Tor Effector
  
  I always buy their DVD sets.
- Guest
  
  the problem with delayed regional releases still persist.
  not a problem if you live in ‘Murica, but otherwise..
  - Tom of finland
    
    Well, here in nordic countries (fi/se/no) we get all HBO content within 12 hours after orginal airing.
    - Benji San
      
      Except that the HBO nordic is a joke
    - name
      
      care to elaborate?
  - ZhyKitty
    
    It’s a problem in America if you’re poor or working poor.
    Basic cable is priced out of reach for those of us working minimum wage or on disability, etc.
    We sure can’t afford to add channels like HBO when we can’t even afford regular cable tv.
    It’s not like you have competition out here in the middle of nowhere…there’s just one cable company and they can and do charge whatever they want.
    Our house always had cable and the extra channels until about 2007 when the jobs disappeared, yet the cable company in this area just kept on raising the prices until most families like ours had to let their cable go.
    We’d pay if they’d put it in our reach….but they just keep on raising the prices….meanwhile, income stagnates and the jobs aren’t coming back….so what can we do? It’s not fair to expect millions of people who are doing their very best to just bow out of popular culture altogether and just accept that most things in life beyond the basics for survival aren’t meant for the likes of us.
    - President
      
      ^ This. Why should I, my wife and my child be denied the wealth of human culture simply because we’re poor? Is music only for the rich? Is a TV show something we’re willing to broadcast outwards into the depths of space for distant civilizations to watch for free in a thousand years, but charge our own kind $50 a boxed set for, when the combined printing and material costs were less than $5? I’ve seen other people say that they’d buy such-and-such if it was reasonably priced, but who decides that the prices are reasonable? The MPAA? iTunes? Some middle man in a suit that never created anything unique in his own lifetime? No, I will go on the way I always have – to liberate the creations of man and distribute them for free amongst my family. The Corporations never cared about me when they charged nearly $40 for a mediocre album back in ’96 – I just call this settling the debt.
    - ZhyKitty
      
      Oh, don’t even get me started on how much the corporations care.
      My twin sister got sick at the end of 2010.
      She worked her ass off every day of her adult life for her poverty – until that last three weeks when she was so sick she couldn’t hardly get out of bed…but like a lot of us here in America, she couldn’t afford to see a doctor and had no insurance…no money….
      There’s never anything left after bills.
      So, she went to the ER and each time she went, they saw that she was poor and they gave her what all poor people who are not dying right that minute get – “the treat and street” where they look you over, do no tests, and as little as possible for you after hours of waiting….and then they sent her on her way, telling her she probably had a flu and should follow up with a doctor, which she told them she couldn’t afford to do.
      On the 6th day of 2011, she went to the ER one last time, and died in their triage room, at 38, from H1N1.
      I didn’t get there in time to say goodbye, despite having driven at speeds which could have landed me in jail.
      They just let her die because she was poor..
      Nobody cared, because no one cares what happens to people like us. We’re priced out of even the basics required to live, much less entertainment, and millions of our neighbors scream in a rage if you even suggest to them that things like health care, one of the very basics to stay alive, should be for everyone, and not just those with money.
      When she was so sick, having no real medicine and only the care we could give at home, her only desire was for things from when we were little…for some reason. She wanted to see endless hours of shows like Little House on the Prairie.
      I guess it was comforting to her. I don’t think she knew she was dying, I certainly didn’t realize it, but maybe some part of her did.
      I downloaded every single episode there was for her.
      I swiped her movies and tv shows galore.
      Anything she asked for…..
      I think I downloaded more in those 3 weeks than I usually do in 3 months.
      I’m NOT sorry.
      It was a comfort to her in her last days – we could not afford to buy these things, so they lost no sales.
      
      If the corporations think that I will ever care for their loss of profit over a song or a movie or a tv show or that ANYTHING they do will ever make me stop seeking these small comforts, when we work so hard but can afford nothing but the basics and the one luxury we have – the internet – they have another think coming to them.
      
      I have lost all that ever mattered to me with her death.
      There is nothing left for them to take from me. We’ve never owned a home, we have no bank account, no credit cards – we own nothing.
      There’s nothing to take…
      If those hours of tv and movies gave her comfort, if she was a little less scared when she was dying alone, waiting for me to get there, before a friend rushed her to the hospital that morning…well…
      I’d say the corporations and I are still far from even.
      Our debt won’t ever be settled.
      That being true, I will continue to watch shows I can’t afford to pay for, and not one fuck for what they think about it shall be wasted.
    - president
      
      I know this doesn’t change a thing, but I am so sorry for your loss. I can’t even imagine what that must have felt like.
    - ZhyKitty
      
      I thank you for your kindness. : )
      I miss her so much, I have no words for it…and to know that she didn’t even have to die…if only they’d helped her early on when she went to them for care…it makes the loss twice as bitter.
      As for not being able to imagine what that was like…
      Sure you can.
      Just look at the person you love most in the world, and picture it happening to them and you being helpless to stop it. Then you’ll imagine it well enough.
      I wish it were my nightmare alone, but the truth is, that’s happening to over 40,000 Americans a year.
      They’re priced out of health care and left to die, often from preventable and treatable diseases.
      Just like my sister.
      
      There’s what we ought to be doing something about, not poor people watching forbidden tv and movies or listening to music we can’t afford to buy.
      
      Back when we had a little bit of extra, in younger days, before I got sick with rheumatoid arthritis, and could work more hours, we spent all of our extra money on entertainment. We supported the artists we loved most. I think most people do that.
      We would save for months to go see someone we liked that was coming to do a concert near us, and we would save for books that were coming out from our favorite authors. It was never a question of “oh I’ll just get this for free because I don’t WANT to pay” and I’m betting that is true for a lot of people who download. We’d pay if we could to support the artists we love the most, and most people here probably do when they can, if they can.
      Your family and mine and millions like us who just don’t have anything left over for entertainment these days, who’ve been priced out of life in general, I just don’t see how they can say with any sincerity that what we’re doing, which harms no one and no sales are lost, is wrong.
      I’ll never see it that way.
      All people should be able to participate in life – the basics and culture alike. No one is saying everyone should have a fancy car or own stupid things like designer clothes…but to be able to participate in the basics of life….seeing a doctor, enough to eat, popular culture…. that really oughtn’t be too much to ask, as hard as we work.
  - Houdini
    
    Then download it now and buy it later.
- BuddhaFacePalmed
  
  We’re lucky in South-East Asia if they don’t censor it (which they do), one week after the original airing.
- Caspin
  
  I don’t think anyone needs these reminders. The Blu-ray and DVD and HBO market is doing better than it ever has in its history, and cultural buzz already gets the majority of us to go see The Hobbit in the theater for 10 bucks before going home to download the screener. And this downloaded file is a copy that materially costs the studio absolutely no money whatsoever, but does in fact allow them a repeated 3 hour advertisement of the film every time we watch it, which increases the desire for merchandise. With a budget of $150 million, the film has now made just shy of a $billion$ and hasn’t even been released on DVD and Blu-ray yet. However, finding the information for the budget, which was easy a month and a half ago, as it was listed on both wikipedia and on box office mojo, is no longer listed on either. The reason for this is because it really doesn’t help the case for the MPAA to say it’s losing money when blatant statistics for the contrary are readily available.
- Anon
  
  I’m an HBO subscriber, not from US though.
  But thanks to the sheer amount of piracy forced HBO to start airing the 3rd seasons of Game of Thrones simultaneously with the US.
  It usually takes quite a while for TV shows to air here in comparison to the US, like one season behind.
  But at least now the waiting time is getting shorter and shorter, all thanks to piracy.
- ext
  
  Agree. I started a HBO subscription and GoT was the major reason.
- n_mailer
  
  I can’t subscribe to HBO because I don’t have cable.
  
  I support shows I like through Amazon VOD. If it’s not on there, I will either will watch it some free way (darknet preferred) or do without.
Violated0

This is indeed nothing new when most TV series have been piracy friendly for a good decade simply through how they are funded.

When a network buys a series they of course do it per season meaning that HBO have already paid for Game of Thrones. Production and actors all paid so everyone is happy there meaning that the goal to profit is now in HBO’s court.

HBO gets money from both subscriptions and advertising where advertising is the one that counts when HBO gets paid by the advertisers based on number of viewers like with the Nielson rating.

So the end truth is the more fans the better where even pirate viewers will want to see official broadcasts and tell their friends to. I am sure HBO’s rating highlights that piracy is sure not hurting them.
Hogspace

If they provided a link that I could download it in the UK for $1 per episode as soon as it is being screened in the US I’d happily pay. So they are throwing away a shed load of cash.
- Pirk
  
  Whoa, a whole dollar? Take it easy there big spender.
  - Andrew me
    
    Yeah $1 a show is $23 a season that does seem a bit high, maybe 25 dollars a months for the game of thrones and all other tv shows, that would amount to around $25 a month more than people are paying now. Actually the $7.99 per months on netflix is the price we should all be looking for. Not $300 a year. I imagine many people just continuing to pirate at that price.
    And $7.99 a month is something a lot of people could afford to pay, but that must include the ability to download files and save them, not just streaming. And it must include all tv shows available not just the junk and older stuff. A max of 48 hours between the first airing in America and it becoming available.
    
    If the tv industry and movie industry had created an environment before 90% of the population had experienced torrenting then they could have asked for more but there greed for control and release windows has taken the right to charge more away from them, they are very very late to the party and latecomers always suffer the innovation of others and lose out on income.
  - Hogspace
    
    Per episode!
cirithungol

HBO have been releasing their big shows on iTunes day and date with their TV airings recently. Hopefully GOT goes the same way!
- poorguy
  
  iTunes sucks and doesn’t run on linux. Therefore it’s still only available to the rich folks.
  - cirithungol
    
    I was thinking more that an iTunes release would also mean 1080p WEB-DL releases, which are significantly higher quality than the HDTV crap that EVOLVE and the like put out each week.
  - Anon
    
    Yeah fuck iTunes.
  - Andyman
    
    Or the dumb ones. I cringe every time someone comes up to me and says, “um my Apple….” …and iTunes is complete garbage.
Violated0

Let is recall why Game of Thrones is highly pirated…
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
- Caspin
  
  That was fucking hilarious!
- http://www.about.me/patrickcurl Patrick Curl
  
  Yeah no kidding, HBO really needs to allow a way for people w/out cable to subscribe, I’d pay them directly but not about to pay cable and HBO on top of that, it’s the future and the future has no need of cable providers thanks to Netflix, Hulu, et al.
- Guest
  
  Or you can just download it from Tpb and then give money to the author whit flattr.
- Manne Monvall
  
  aw yeah, it’s weird how he almost preternaturally puts the finger on the issue as to why we’re actually downloading it ASAP O_o
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anonymous

it has been stated time and time again that those that ‘file share’ are also the ones that buy the most. the only people that wont admit to this are the labels and studios. they know it’s the truth but daren’t agree because it puts there strategy of ‘sue everyone, put them into jail, bankrupt the rest’ into the crap. if they were to agree they would have no ammunition with which to lobby for more, stricter laws. bribing alone helps, but they need the bullshit they spin as well to be believed as back up.
http://twitter.com/wartzilla wartzilla

Streaming is horrible. There’s a reason I download shows and that’s because I want to watch them with proper picture quality, proper audio, no stuttering or interruptions, and in the video player of my choice.

If I could download episodes for a charge on, say, Steam, or a platform like Steam, I would.
- anon
  
  Long live our Lord and Savior Gaben!!!
- FYI
  
  Amazon has actually done a lot to release content without the restrictions one gets on other platforms (e.g. iTunes). Still a bit more limited than a torrent would be, but it should do everything you just said.
  
  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BHAT2AQ/
- Andyman
  
  I like the no commercials aspect as well as the “ownership” of the file. I want to be able to access, copy, share, play, move and watch it on any damn device I have or want to. It isn’t just competing with “free” it is competing with a comparable product. An iTunes download is none of these things without additional manipulation.
Ry

I pirate GOT and I’m in Australia. I want to see it as it comes out. I also have bought both seasons on iTunes. I pay for what is good, if I can pay for it.

Last season they released each episode 1 week late, I can deal with that. Happy to pay for HD, happy to pay for good content.
- Guest
  
  I’m not.
  simple matter of convenience:
  1. lightweight and easy to use utorrent + very fast downloading
  2. bloatware itunes or alike + no instant access after airing + having to identify yourself and your credit card (and hope it won’t be stolen if/when itunes or whatever gets hacked)
http://www.facebook.com/forkingham.melle Forkingham Melle

for every pirate there are six million people who don’t use toilet roll, the world does not revolve around trash like this, and it is off topic and i don’t care because i’m having a mid life crisis and i just had to tell the world
xSubZer0x

Game of thrones ftw
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Guest

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
nonamthanks

What a crock of shit that only Unscary_Devil_Monastery could come up with.

It only means someone’s cock hasn’t been sucked enough. No matter, I’ll get right on that.
Bananas

i never watched it, but i just know it do exist due to people on facebook talking about downloading it
rndmfrd222

UWA ftw, Yay Perth and cool uni’s :D
Finally a director speaking sensibly…
http://twitter.com/MidoThePirate Ahmed Omar

but who can understand the real meaning of File sharing
anonDufus

Yeah no kidding, HBO really needs to allow a way for people w/out cable to subscribe, I’d pay them directly but not about to pay cable and HBO on top of that, it’s the future and the future has no need of cable providers thanks to Netflix, Hulu, et al.
http://twitter.com/mrhorseshoe コルセット

He is right. I ordered HBO after pirating the first season. Looking forward to season 3!
http://twitter.com/Trout9000 Trout9000

I don’t currently pirate GoT, but even if I did if HBO offered a subscription plan outside of paying for actual cable TV I would be all over it. Just like Netflix and Hulu Plus.
JTShiro

I’ll download the episodes when they air, but I buy them once the blu-ray is released
shertink

Steve Jobs is often credited for offering a revolutionary way to curb music piracy.
It wasn’t to drag music fans into court, saddling them with crippling debt and legal fees. It wasn’t about convincing ISPs to institute a copyright alert system to hassle users.
No, the Apple co-founder had a much simpler solution: Jobs believed you could convince people to obtain legitimate music tracks by competing with piracy and offering a better user experience.

Nearly ten years after the iTunes Stores debuted, people are still turning away from piracy to buy music from vendors such as Amazon and Apple. And the trend of obtaining officially sanctioned music from legitimate sources is only increasing, according to the NPD Group’s annual survey of music consumer behavior.

Music piracy over peer-to-peer networks declined by 17 percent in 2012 compared to the year previous, based on NPD’s online survey of more than 5,000 U.S. Internet users between December and January. That decline translates into about 12 million fewer American audio pirates between 2011 and 2012. And the number one reason NPD cited for the precipitous drop in music piracy was free, ad-supported streaming services such as Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify.

Free streaming isn’t just taking a bite out of P2P piracy either. Other forms of music sharing are also on the decline, such as borrowing and ripping a friend’s CD, trading music files through good ol’ sneakernet, and sharing via online storage services.
(by @ianpaul, PCWorld)
Romet6

Winter is coming…
http://www.facebook.com/AnThraxan An Thraxan

I believe that piracy is an evolutionary step when it comes to programs and simply the life in which we live today. I am unable usually to watch anything in the day as my sister has special needs (I am a career). Now IF I did download I also have a Sky TV Subscription (UK/Irish tv privider) which has brought out the option to download shows on the go if they are on their channels. Now if they had game of thrones as fast as HBO has it then I would simply use Sky TV. However I would prefer to get to see the show straight away. I have read the books and I just want to see it lol!

So in conclusion, even if I did download I also have a tv subscription that costs €50 a month. Ergo my broadcaster is not losing any money.
lol

Torrent like subscription sites with most if not all shows would fix this “piracy” problem.

I think i would be fairly accurate in saying that most people pirate/stream to check out shows, don’t have other access to these shows cause of country restrictions and wouldn’t mind paying a few bucks for all their entertaining need over the internets tubes.
- http://www.facebook.com/AnThraxan An Thraxan
  
  This is true, though the reason I have not got Netflix is simply because I have a download limit of 100GB a month. I worry that for instance if I was watching a number of shows that I would breach that limit and be unable to use my subscription. However if it was unlimited downloads I would have netflix straight away!
lol

Let’s not forget that BitTorrent is the perfect technology to reduce the bandwidth required to run such a site. Especially with the implentation of torrent(p2p) streaming.
http://profiles.google.com/luisalvaradox Luis Alvarado

You bet your ass I paid for the HBO subscription. After downloading the first season I had to pay for HBO to watch that series. Best series. In the Top 10 for me. In my case downloading the “pirate” version, instead of promoting the stuff MPAA says, it actually made be think twice about paying for HBO, which after 2 weeks I had to do because it was worth it.
http://www.facebook.com/pandylyons Andrew Lyons

I’ve always pirated tv shows due to only having Freeview (I live in the uk). I liked watching some very good tv shows which eventually turned me to wanting to get Sky TV. So I can understand what he means.
sharms

The days of the middleman are coming to an end. Listen to Bell MPAA, it tolls for thee.
Chris

I have watched GoT at friends houses since I do not have cable, but I own Season 1 & 2 on Blu Ray and have watched them again and again. I expect this will continue with season 3.
Typhoid Mary

I would have never known about GOT if not for torrents. I can’t wait for season 3
http://twitter.com/Nelson2030 Nelson Batista

i have pirated the show because it is not shown on my country but ive made sure to get the DVD sets from amazon !!
Barry McKochiner

Game of thrones is on HBO?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Christopher-Phillips/685034049 Christopher Phillips

Game of Thrones is on HBO?
Typhoid Mary

Sign this petition on the six strikes

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/address-six-strikes-plan-being-pursued-att-cablevision-systems-comcast-time-warner-cable-and-verizon/gFySGW4B
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Canadian

What is shared may not die!
Mr_Joseph

i don’t give a shite to that serie. the best was made in 80s
Robert Paulson

“Breed pirates” this article acts as if the majority of the internet has never used a torrent program in their lives. Hell, even my girlfriend know how to pirate whatever she likes. Just because someone uses bittorrent once doesn’t mean they will never pay for media ever again. This is the kind of view that breeds SOPAs and CISPAs. Instead of trying to offer a service worth paying for they assume nobody will ever want to show their appreciation for good content through their wallets and try to curb downloading instead.

It’s sad to see how out of touch the industry is even today.
teleprompter

Nah, i think mpaa are making indiscreet proxy phone calls to the dude who puts the bread on this mans table, i wouldnt be surprised if this dude recinds his statement, and replaces it with a more “educational” one
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Dav

I don’t have a subscription to HBO (or cable for that matter) so I download them…. then I buy the Blu Rays. If you like something you need to support it, shows like this are not cheap to produce. That being said torrents are amazing for the ability to try things before you buy.
SimoneNonvelodico

I’ll just leave this here.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5oc1zGjOE1qk39ngo1_500.jpg
ralpher

well i heard about this show for the first time from IRC and i would’ve never even been able to watch it in a smooth manner if i couldnt download it.

services for shows is terrible in sweden (and in the rest of the world too tbh)
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Tony Burgio

I like that you guys are balanced enough to play devil’s advocate and hint that in a situation such as this one, piracy does not breed more revenue or ratings. Seriously, props.
castingcouch

Official streaming is often poor quality, stuttering, and is too limited as to what you can play it on. I bought the GoT DVDs, but those guys have to get their shit together and start offering the show for a decent price in a good format to the rest of the world. So far that is not happening.
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Hmh

MPAA is business and they dont care about artist or what ever .. as long as they get paied… all tv channels should move to new world and show all apisodes of new seasons of shows to over earth in the same day so there will be less of the pirating .. make it easy for the consumers and there will not be pirate’s but instead they make it hard for everyone to see and thats why there are pirates
Slav

Of course we should support the producers. I download many tv shows, but if I like something much I buy DVD boxset. Everyone should do that.
http://www.facebook.com/james.garay1 James Garay

it wouldn’t be bad to subscribe to HBO.. that is if most cable operators didn’t require you to also have a subscription to one of their more expensive packages also. with time warner we have to get the digital variety package in order to even have a chance of ordering HBO. that is an extra 40 dollars a month.

this is why i don’t have a problem with piracy, because modern media is all about extorting as much money as possible from us.
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berock212

It’s interesting how piracy can be very positive for tv and games. Look at minecraft, everyone pirated it and yet it still was very successful. Even if downloading stuff illegally they are still watching the show and are likely to recommend the show. Instead of fighting piracy which is virtually impossible shows should embrace the attention piracy gets and learn how to benefit from it.

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