HBO Says Game of Thrones Piracy Is "a Compliment" 447
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"
Funny that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny that, someone I know got this...
Word of Mouth (Score:5, Interesting)
Buy HBO content on iTunes (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.
If it wasn't for piracy I would have never watched (Score:4, Interesting)
Being that its on HBO, a premium channel, I would never have never even know about it.
"No we haven't sent out the game of thrones police (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No shit (Score:3, Interesting)
They're also missing out on the cost to distribute it worldwide while making sure not to run afoul of censorship laws, cultural taboos, local trademarks, or embarrassing history. After all that, there might still be some profit, but perhaps not enough to justify the increased administrative difficulty and legal risk for the parent company. Believe it or not, some companies really don't want to go chasing endlessly after every cent of profit they can possibly get.
Re:No shit (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not even theft, it's a copyright violation, a civil offense.
Uhh, in the U.S. copyright infringement is a criminal offense. [copyright.gov] Don't you actually read that FBI warning that comes up before EVERY bit of content on DVDs? Also, there is no such thing as a victimless crime. Now, there are also civil charges for copyright infringement that can be applied, but it's a crime and there are people that suffer financial loss because of it. Those people usually don't include Hollywood as their profits keep going up despite copyright infringement. But, small production companies and artists trying to get their foot in the door do suffer real consequences of copyright infringement and do suffer real "hurt" because of it. I'm not getting on a high horse here as I have violated a few laws in my time, but I am not ignorant of what I am doing nor the real consequences thereof.
Re:No shit (Score:5, 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.
Re:No shit (Score:4, 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.