Game Of Thrones On Track To Be Most Pirated Show Of 2012; Pirates Still Asking HBO For Legitimate Options
from the blame-matthew-inman? dept
Much like the North, Game of Thrones cannot be held—it's too big and too wild. Matthew Inman warned HBO that they should make their content more accessible or risk driving people to piracy, but that isn't really HBO's style. Now jilocasin points us to the news that Game of Thrones is well on track to be the most torrented show of 2012, and nobody can deny that HBO's foolish subscriber-only distribution is a primary reason for that. Approximately 25-million times have people decided to pay the iron price for the show, and as the comments on Reddit attest, it's often because the gold price wasn't even an option. Others pay for the show but still pirate for the sake of occasional convenience:
Sometimes I just want to fire up an episode and watch it on my laptop immediately and with mobility as I'm wandering around the house, and not worry about streaming/quality issues or finding a disk, setting up the DVD player etc. I am truly lazy.
Meanwhile, Game of Thrones continues to have great ratings. And the torrent piracy count doesn't include streams, which are also hugely popular, so it only represents a fraction of the pirate world. Why not create new ways to legitimize some of those viewers, especially considering so many of them have said they want to be legitimized? I still contend that HBO-style shows owe a lot to piracy for their cultural dominance, because, if they were actually as exclusive as HBO wants to pretend they are, they would have had a much harder time gathering fans. But HBO co-president Eric Kessler thinks cord-cutting is a fad, so like most characters in the show, he's fighting silly battles while ignoring what's really going on.
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Filed Under: eric kessler, game of thrones, piracy, television, torrent
Companies: hbo
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Miss the mark
Do you think Comcast or Verizon could survive pay channels selling directly to the customer? And would HBO/SHO continue to survive without the marketing and security cable providers give to their network?
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Miss the mark
Do you think Comcast or Verizon could survive pay channels selling directly to the customer? And would HBO/SHO continue to survive without the marketing and security cable providers give to their network?
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FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
$12.95/MONTH ?
NO WAY !
[SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]
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Re: $12.95/MONTH ?
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In 10 years or so HBO's viewers will all be grown up, and will start paying triple what HBO is charging today just to watch their favorite shows like Game of Thrones!
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how many companies/industries suffer from this syndrome today?
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Overpriced HBO
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3(shows) * ~12 episodes/year = 36 episodes/year
$16/month * 12months/year = $192/year.
The average would be: $192/36 = ~$5.33/episode.
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Re: Re: Re: Overpriced HBO
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I'm British, and most american shows, if they come to British TV at all, come weeks or months behind the USA. Some of the most popular ones air a few days to a week later. Game of Thrones airs on the Monday evening, about 18 hours after the US release, meaning that when I get home from work on Monday, and am ready to watch the show - it's on TV! Now, I'm a "cable cutter" - I don't own a TV, and do all my viewing through the internet. But Game of Thrones is on the Sky Atlantic channel. Sky offer a great online service - SkyGo, which I am happily subscribed to without having a TV in the house. Perhaps if more TV networks/providers had a similar outlook, and made it easier to pay them money to watch their shows, many more would!
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VAT
/just honestly asking.
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Pirates are murdering people to get access to HBO shows? o.O
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ironic
Why is that?
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and please, for the love of all things beautiful in the world, please fit the zippy graphics, promotional crap to a WIDE SCREEN 16:9 format!! Nobody owns a square TV anymore.
not to contradict, but 'this guy I know' gets all his entertainment digitally, and I, er, I mean 'he' has noticed that almost every TV rip and Movie contain the credits. Now I am not thinking altruistically, that the 'filthy pirate' that created such a wonderful distributable file, but it makes you wonder. If he took the time to rip out 15 min of commercials, not so tedious, yet left the credits in, it does give you a look at the psyche behind the 'filthy pirate', regardless of your opinion, it's a good thought exercise.
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P.S I'll be back after I've checked your grammar.
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Re: ironic
It's not that I don't want to believe you're right (though to be clear, redacting credits from pirated TV releases does not offend me in the slightest), but my gut just tells me those credits that you see are there for WAY less altruistic reasons than you seem to believe.
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+5 internetz
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There's variance by medium, too. Eg, for comics you usually follow a particular group, while for TV shows there's a race among several competing groups to be the firstest with the mostest.
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DVD Copy
Doesn't that make Cam Cording in a movie theatre legal? And if you own the copyrights to video you take yourself, doesn't that automatically give you copyright on the video of the DVD, and/or the CAM from the movie theatre?.
I'm confused..
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Audio Format
Now I'm really confused...
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HBO doesn't think so.
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how long did it take the series'Lost' to make it to DVD?
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Timing is everything. (Well, timing and convenience. And price. And quality.)
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price i would pay
If i hired the box set for a week it would cost �3. But watching it as a DVD in a week doesn't suit either.
There are 10 episodes in a season - so renting an episode costs 30p.
My BBC licence is �160 per year, i once worked out that for prime TV i pay about 10p per hour.
i reckon i would pay 20p per episode if i could watch GoT when i wanted, ie now, on anything, anywhere.
If they could get 60million viewers worldwide to pay that per episode they would make a good profit on each one.
I think that is probably doable.
What do you think?
Apologies for shoddy maths and invented figures.
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The same issue, in draw
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If HBO put it up for 99 cents an episode
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FU HBO
"but..but... that would cannibalize our revenue stream."
Well you say that cord cutters are some mythical species, so streaming it from your site shouldn't affect your core audience at all. To be fair, I seriously doubt the bulk of your current subscribers would cut the cord anyway. That's a generational trend that you will have to deal with in the next 10 years or so.
In the meantime, you can either a) complain about lost revenue that never existed, or b) make a new revenue stream and enjoy the profit.
We will understand if you choose to whine about loss while we enjoy the programming. Good luck.
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As an American who waited over a year for several BBC shows to arrive here while all my friends online were busy getting excited about them, I sympathize with people in markets where local stations wait until the first series is long done abroad before checking the ratings and deciding to buy. The gap tends to close a bit after that for popular shows, but I've seen shows where even series 2 or 3 weren't available until months after airing. In the internet age, that's not the first local release - it's syndication.
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Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
I don't buy HBO. I don't think it's worth it. But if there's a show I want to see, I wait until it's out on DVD. That's their business model and they're entitled to it.
How would Mike feel if we broke into the Techdirt CMS and took stories that weren't available to the public yet? He would be screaming about how this was violating his privacy etc etc. Yet here he his championing people who break into HBO's admittedly big CMS with an admittedly huge set of authorized members.
Face it. You can either either be champion of privacy or a champion of piracy but you can't be both because, at its core, piracy is just violating the private files of the content creators.
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
He gives it to you if you pay him $15. He doesn't make you pay Google $100 to get it for $15 from him, and he doesn't wait until next year to put it out on DVD form that you can buy.
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
But not everywhere, by your own admission.
On top of that, people aren't saying they won't get cable. They're saying they won't get the cable packages required to even have HBO as an option plus the extra expense of HBO itself just to watch one or two shows. There's a huge difference. people want to pay, they just don't want to pay for $100 of unnecessary crap every month just to watch a TV show.
"But if there's a show I want to see, I wait until it's out on DVD."
...and if it's never released on DVD? Or the DVD is restricted or blocked from you in some way?
"That's their business model and they're entitled to it. "
...and others are entitled to voice their opinion about it if they think it's flawed or doomed to failure, especially if it clearly incentivises piracy.
"He would be screaming about how this was violating his privacy etc etc."
Citation needed.
"Yet here he his championing people who break into HBO's admittedly big CMS with an admittedly huge set of authorized members."
Except that's absolutely nothing like the post you're responding to. Read the actual words, not the fantasy you make up in your head.
"Face it. You can either either be champion of privacy or a champion of piracy but you can't be both because, at its core, piracy is just violating the private files of the content creators."
Yes, you're one of the paranoid lunatics who troll this site by launching unfounded accusations against others and never deem it necessary to back up your claims or admit you're wrong when faced with clear evidence of that. You may be one of the more polite and less single minded trolls here, but that label still fits.
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Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/premiums/hbo
2) "There's a huge difference. people want to pay, they just don't want to pay for $100 of unnecessary crap every month just to watch a TV show."
So this gives them the right to take it? I want to pay for a BMW, but I want it at a Chevy price. What? BMW won't give it to me for that price? I'm just going to take it. I love your morals.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/29/bskyb-buys-hbo-tv-catalogue
Just look around. There's more to the Internet than just the torrent finders. You might find a legit option.
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No streaming here. No netflix. No hulu.
Only alternative = piracy.
Get your facts straight.
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You also miss another point - most countries don't have such clear-cut options. What do people in those countries where GoT has not been made available by a local supplier do? Between region blocked DVDs and no legal online streaming, people either do without or they pirate GoT. Whether you think it's moral does not change the fact that these people are being offered zero legal options.
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
Is that available on its own? Because that still doesn't solve the problem if the customer still has to buy hundreds of dollars of unwanted crap. It *might* increase the number of people serviced by an insanely expensive option, but it doesn't address any other problem.
Plus, you always forget the 3rd option - do without. If piracy suddenly disappeared and the choices were not to watch HBO content and pay $100/month to watch it, most would choose the latter. I fail to see how this helps HBO. The "waaah! piracy!" excuses would disappear, but HBO would be making less money.
"So this gives them the right to take it? "
Why are you morons incapable of understanding there's a difference between "this is reality, piracy is happening and this is why" and "I support everything that every pirate does".
Perhaps you would understand people better if you weren't putting words into their mouths and attacking them for things they've never said. Oh, and stop with the physical analogies. You people are horrible at them.
"I love your morals."
You would if you bothered to read what they actually were.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
And insisting on buying HBO separately is another sophism. Many content systems are subscription-based and you must take the good with the bad. Magazines, newspapers, and cable. Even the book business has subscription services like the Book of the Month Club designed to give people bulk discounts.
Just think of cable as a bulk discount.
And I'm certain that everyone around here would be complaining and asking for a bulk discount if the cable businesses forced everything to be pay-per-view.
So the fact remains: there is a nice legit option. If you don't like the $100+ cable bill, don't pay it and buy DVDs. That's what I do. That will send them a much better message than pirating.
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Market dictates. Fail to meet its needs at your own peril.
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Nothing.
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You seem to be missing the point. Yes, it's a discount package, but it's a discount on useless crap. There's no real reason why it's neecessary, apart from the fact that HBO have chosen that distribution system (itself something people are already abandoning). HBO is offered as a premium over and above that package. It doesn't matter whether the package is $100 or $10, whether it's a 50% or 70% discount, it's still more than people want to buy. So they don't.
"And I'm certain that everyone around here would be complaining and asking for a bulk discount if the cable businesses forced everything to be pay-per-view. "
Stop living in a binary world. Reality has shades of grey. "All or nothing" are not the only 2 choices.
"That will send them a much better message than pirating."
I agree. However, I cannot force human nature to cease, and neither can HBO. Piracy will always exist, you just have to convince more people to part with money. People are here telling you exactly how they're willing to do that, yet you mock them and tell them to waste an extra $100/month so they can watch a single show. Either that, or wait a year to be offered the chance to buy the show, long after everything's been spoiled for them in every online discussion about the show, or after its faded into irrelevance for them.
Hopefully, you'll realise how silly this is. You might even recognise these arguments for what they are, instead of launching the usual parade of false accusations against anyone who dares question the validity of the current status quo.
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Alas, I don't believe that cheaper prices would mean less piracy. Everyone says that around here, but I haven't seen the evidence. Apple and Amazon have revolutionized content delivery. It's much easier to use their system then the cruddy torrent browsers. The only catch is that you must pay for it.
I think there's a big block of people who are just tooo cheap. Then they sit around and look to this blog for intellectual justification for taking someone's hard work without compensating them. Oh sure, they complain when a big corporation takes work without paying, but they think it's okay for themselves to do it.
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There's numerous factors contributing to the swell of piracy, not just pricing but quality. These companies have an obligation, if they still want to get our money, to provide a better product.
If you weren't so blinded by your anti-piracy stance, you'd see it, but you're more than willing to be ignorant and silent when companies treat their consumers poorly, and frankly that only decreases any credibility you have commenting here.
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So you're new game is saying that iTunes won't give it to you in the right format. Waaahhh.
Cheap couch potatoes will always come up with some rationalization not to pay their fair share.
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the cheapskates around here said they would stop pirating once there was an easy to use system. Then they changed their tune with iTunes came along. "
Horseshit. I have netflix, I pay for whatever I can watch there. Gladly too. I don't seem to be alone in this, as there are many others who do as well.
Your iTunes example is bogus. No one ever said it would "stop" piracy. What it DID do, and the lesson that Big Media seems to not be able to get, is it MONETIZED a lot of them and created a NEW revenue stream where there wasn't one before. Seems this is a lesson you don't get either.
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Chevy prices to be found?
Nope
BMW cost?
1 million
Who can afford it?
A certain type of people
Why?
Quick buck or million......per transaction.....maximum gain
Will i support this business mentality as an AVERAGE consumer?
FUCK NO, you puppet, Id rather buy second hand, thankyou fucking much,
and if anyone here is drinking thE "koolaid" my delusional corporate "friend", that'll be the one preaching the words of a system set up to butt rape the AVERAGE consumer, all the while saying
please sir, can i have some more
You cant apply the "koolaid" defence on those with an independant thought, which happens to be the same independant thoughts going through other independant thinking peoples
Implying that we are influenced by an organisation such as google for instance would be in your part either ignorant, a lie, or just your pathetic attempt at propaganda
Bob, you are either well off, or you do not consume nearly enough media to realise the amount of money it would take to view ALL media available around the world
Corporations would have an interest in limiting said media in order to maximise profit, in the internet age, thats fucking redundant
Whats that bob?.....enti......enti....entitlement, you say
Its called progress, the same kind of progress that allowed hollywood to set up shop all those years ago, away from those looking to cash in on other peoples sucess, or be crushed under the pressure by the status quo
Seems history is repeating its self, and in this case, your role at the moment is to stifle hollywods sucess
You know what ignore everything ive just said, this next bit feels alot more satisfying
DUMBASS
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
Reading failure, again, bob. The proper analogy would be paying for a Ford, a Chevy, and a garage just to be able to purchase the BMW. But you aren't really buying anything, you're just renting.
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
The people asking for a legitimate version of the show are asking for it to be available either on iTunes or through Netflix or through HBO itself. They want to pay to watch the show. They just don't want to have to subscribe to cable/satellite and then subscribe to HBO just for one tv show which airs only one time per week (insofar as one new episode per week, not necessarily just one time per week).
"How would Mike feel if we broke into the Techdirt CMS and took stories that weren't available to the public yet? He would be screaming about how this was violating his privacy etc etc. Yet here he his championing people who break into HBO's admittedly big CMS with an admittedly huge set of authorized members. "
I can't with certainty say how Mike would feel, but I'm sure his first concern would be security related. How did they break in? What exactly did they take? And so on and so forth. But I don't see how he's championing for people to break into HBO's CMS. He's stating facts. People are pirating the show. People want to pay for the show. They have no legitimate means to do so, beyond "buy cable" as you not so eloquently put it.
"Face it. You can either either be champion of privacy or a champion of piracy but you can't be both because, at its core, piracy is just violating the private files of the content creators."
bob only in you're deluded world is Mike a champion for piracy. By saying "piracy happens, you can't kill it completely but you can focus on the people who want to pay etc etc etc", Mike is stating things as they are, he's being a realist. He is NOT however being a "champion of piracy". And sorry, but "piracy is just violating the private files of the content creators" is a CROCK OF SH*T. If those files were private they WOULD NOT be able to be pirated. Once something is released to the world in any form it is no longer private. A tv show, aired on television is MOST DEFINITELY NOT the "private files of the content creators".
And the fact that you can't distinguish the difference between Mike's stories on a server which haven't been released to the public yet and a tv episode that has already been broadcasted multiple times to the public says just how out of touch with reality/proper analogies you are.
"Your music's bad and you should feel bad!" - Dr. Zoidberg
That quote came to mind when I read what you wrote. Except I'd change "music" to "argument/comment".
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What? You don't like the price? Tough beans. Just because you don't want to marry a girl doesn't mean you have a right to take whatever you want. Just because you want a Porsche at a Chevy price doesn't give you the right to just take it.
Get some morals dude.
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But you are. You're depriving the world of fairness and economic justice. The people who buy legit subscriptions need to pay more because the company can't recoup their costs from the freeloaders.
In many cases, the people who get stuck with the extra costs are the ones who aren't so smart. Maybe they're older. Maybe their daddy didn't buy them a big fat Internet pipe. Maybe they're just not so good with computers.
You're basically saying, "Tough nuts, morons. I'm smart and I can use torrents to not pay. My daddy got me a fat pipe and not you. I'm just going to be laughing at you suckers while I download and refuse to pay for the slice of the pie I'm eating."
In essence, you're picking the pockets of the retired folks who can't work a torrent system. You're forcing the undereducated folks to pay more just to feed your habit. You're sticking it to the poor who can't afford the extra $40 for the fat Internet pipe.
Face it bub: you're taking fairness and economic justice from the world.
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No, bub (Can I call you bub?), fairness and economic justice from the world was taken when people could be sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars for allegedly downloading a song or movie, without proof or verified evidence gathering methodology.
You can't take something that was never there to begin with. Surely even you understand that.
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Regarding "legitimate versions", again, you ignore that people DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR THINGS THEY DON'T WANT/NEED. A cable/satellite subscription to just watch one show is most definitely not the answer. They want just one show. Offer it in other legitimate ways is what they're saying. Ala iTunes, ala Netflix, ala a Pay Per Download directly from HBO. Something. Anything but "pay for a whole lotta other stuff that you won't actually watch".
And please, stop with bad analogies. What does not wanting to marry a girl have to do with wanting to pay for ONE show only? And sorry, but the Porsche analogy is even worse. Why? Because you can get a Porsche for the price of a Chevy. Locally, about a month back, there was some severe thunderstorms with hail. Guess what? You could buy any BMW from the dealership for under $4,000. Were they all damaged? Nope. Some had like a minor dent/ding here or there. Some were beyond worth paying even that much for. A smart consumer shops around. In every industry but the entertainment one can you find what you want at a price that is reasonable and in multiple offerings. EVERY SINGLE OTHER INDUSTRY.
Get some brains, dude. FYI, morals are very subjective. He probably has better morals than you do. That much is evident to me by his not showing up on a high horse like someone...
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
Rights on both side are completely irrelevant to the discussion. You can scream about morals until you're blue in the face and it's not going to change anything about the consequences of HBO's decision. It's costing them money because they're stuck in the past and are too stubborn to change.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
The problem is that it's almost certainly not costing them money. They know what the market will bear and they spend plenty of time watching how often that people cancel their subscriptions to cable. They know when it's too much.
And while it might be too much for you, most of America thinks differently. They're willing to pay. So I bet it's not costing them money. In fact, it's making them enough to buy health coverage for a bunch of artists. That's good in my book.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
Yeah, that's the gist of what the article said. Coupled with some frustration that they were letting that happen.
"The problem is that it's almost certainly not costing them money. They know what the market will bear and they spend plenty of time watching how often that people cancel their subscriptions to cable. They know when it's too much."
This is as obviously false as it is ludicrous.
"And while it might be too much for you, most of America thinks differently."
Ad hom aside it's evident from the rampant infringement that many of their fans do not, in fact, think differently.
You live in some fairy land where whatever price it is is obviously the best price because that's what the price is. It's circular logic that completely ignores the very real possibility, in light of the evidence on hand near absolute certainty in fact, that the price was set poorly to begin with.
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Re: Re: Re: denial
> bob, May 11th, 2012 @ 7:57am: No.
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
I have no problem giving HBO money. I would give them quite a bit of money, actually. I would give them significantly more than they would get from Cox for my subscription. They just refuse to accept my money unless I give a third party a lot of extra money.
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Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
The economy has evolved this way because it's more efficient. Sometimes things evolve to support the pay-per-view model-- Apple's iTunes is a good example-- but often they don't. It's just too inefficient.
Let me ask you a question: are you also the kind of person who's complaining about how wireless companies are now metering you by the megabyte? Are you complaining that Netflix doesn't have enough cool new shows available for one fixed price?
I don't buy cable because I don't like the price. But I fully support their right to bundle things in arbitrary ways. I wish they didn't, but that's how life works. It's often too inefficient to unbundle everything.
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
What if one company tried to control how "efficiently" the economy evolved? The term is subjective, and the RIAA has fought to extinguish what they was "inefficient" before.
Take for example Itunes...you don't even know the hell Apple had to go through to get the RIAA execs to greenlight their Itunes model. Though if Apple had held your "that's how life works" attitude, paying ten bucks for a CD when you only wanted one song would have have continued on a lot longer.
"I don't buy cable because I don't like the price. But I fully support their right to bundle things in arbitrary ways. I wish they didn't, but that's how life works. It's often too inefficient to unbundle everything."
Let me ask you this...are consumers wrong for complaining that a company does things in an arbitrary way?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
HBO shows are very, very, very expensive to make. They can't just put them on Netflix and pay for them with the pennies they get for each viewing.
So you can complain all you want, but it doesn't mean the company can afford to listen to your plaints. It's just economics. You can't get just tell Porsche to start pricing their cars like Yugos. Somethings got to give.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
Wow. You're a full blown parody of yourself at this point.
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
You're comparing apples to oranges to bananas.
- A cookie is in the physical world & is scarce. When purchased it is a voluntary exchange.
- Government owned roads are also in the physical world & are scarce, however, they are funded through theft & coercion. Not a voluntary exchange.
- A magazine article could be in the physical world of scarcity or in the digital world of non-scarcity. A voluntary exchange if the publisher decides to charge for access.
"The economy has evolved this way because it's more efficient. Sometimes things evolve to support the pay-per-view model-- Apple's iTunes is a good example-- but often they don't. It's just too inefficient."
You could legitimately make the efficiency argument if the exchange in question were purely voluntary. However, government intervention/force permeates so much of the current economic state of affairs, it's next to impossible to find a market not molested by the violence of the State.
People are going to copy things like "Game of Thrones" no matter what the situation. So it would make the most economic sense for HBO to create various services with more value than .torrent's to entice people to purchase through competition (rather than resorting to State violence via "the law").
Persuade through voluntary means and all will benefit.
Continue implementing State violence through the censorship that is "intellectual property" and all will suffer.
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
The road model doesn't really hold up either, since it's a government service that everybody HAS to pay for. Period. Just to remind you, we're talking about a luxury service provider that is using an antiquated distribution model and would rather try to legislate stasis than adapt. Kind of (but not exactly) like the movie studios that didn't adopt sound.
Going back to your car analogy, it's not a matter of wanting to pay a Chev price for a BMW; it's a matter of having to also buy a Chev, Ford, Smart, VW, Honda, Nissan, Mercedes and Audi to be able to get the BMW. Hence why physical product analogies don't work well with describing electronic media distribution/sales models.
Maga-what? Who on earth still reads physical magazines? It's been easily 15-20 years since I've read a magazine, much less had a subscription. I was 13 when I figured out that they were little more than targeted marketing systems, with only just barely enough content to make it so that gullible people would pay for them. This is an honest question to the thread at large: does anyone actually think that print magazines are at all relevant?
And, please pardon the poor thread etiquette, to comment on your post in #109: I never published any of those. They are private documents and are not intended for public view. HBO's reason for existing is to publish media. Again, perhaps you might want to re-think your analogies. I have no interest in an HBO exec's diaries or tax forms.
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
How is asking for a version you pay HBO for not a legitimate version? Or do you have no notion what-so-ever of what putting so-called and quotes around something actually means? If it's offered by HBO directly it's a legit version.
They sure are acting entitled and it's not in their best interests and It's sad.
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
Yeah, because everything always automatically comes out on DVD. Pray, tell, where can I purchase a (legit) full/uncut copy of Song of the South by Disney? Oh thats right, its NEVER BEEN RELEASED ON HOME VIDEO. It is not always a given, so just "waiting" isn't always a solution. How about region-restricted sales? Want to share your glorious wisdom on how someone is supposed to "buy" a DVD not offered AT ALL in their part of the world? What, they should move to another COUNTRY if they want to see it? Or do you just pull the "they will just have to do without" card, because thats a GREAT way to build an audience and sell your product: fuck them if they can't see it.
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Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
My feeling is that it's their choice. They made. They put the money up. They can choose to do what they want. Just like you can choose what to do with your creations.
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
Everyone has a right to keep information to themselves. It's when they decide to share it - even once - that they begin to lose control over it. That used to be a slow process, held back by distribution limitations. Now it's almost instant. Share once and you've shared with the world.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
And as far as I'm concerned - that's a fantastic thing, and I'm glad to be alive to see it. I just don't understand why some people can't see this as a triumph of human ingenuity. No human being need ever go without access to all the knowledge and information we've accumulated over thousands of years. How is this a bad thing, again?
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
Market has no morals, only wants or needs. It's not going to wait around to be fed if it doesn't have to.
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Re: Re: Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
My feeling is that it's their choice. They made. They put the money up. They can choose to do what they want. Just like you can choose what to do with your creations."
Uh uh, no, thats not the same, you don't get to roll out something that ridiculous and get away with it.
If you have private, unfinished, etc work that is NOT the same as a product you release to the public for consumption. To conflate the two as a way to counter my question is specious and misleading.
When you put something out for the public to consume (paid or not) you get certain LIMITED rights via copyright. It's not a blanket set of absolute control. If you are so concerned with infringing or unpaid consumption, then DON'T RELEASE IT. Just like no one is holding a gun to my head to consume it, no one is holding a gun to your head to put it out there either. If you put something out, one of 3 things happens:
1) The public ignores it and it doesnt sell (this is what happens to the VAST majority of stuff out there, and is THE single biggest problem, not piracy)
2) The public likes it and wants to see/consume it, but can't due to factors like restricted access, limited funds, region blocks, waiting a year for DVD etc. This leads to piracy. Most piracy is less about price than these other factors. If you block a country of 65 million people from being able to see your show, don't be surprised if they find other means. Thats a lot of potential viewers that are just cut off from the get-go.
3) The public likes it and pays for it in some manner (if there is a method for them to do so.)
#1 is what happens in 95% of all creative output. #2 is what mostly happens when something is popular and indeed usually contributes to the popularity despite the restrictions.
You still didn't answer my question: where can I get Song of the South? I have money, ready to buy. If I can't buy, which option do you think will happen? If it has NEVER BEEN available, then it has been abandoned as a product. Please explain how I am morally or ethically wrong in doing so when there is NO other legit option to be had?
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
I'll pay $5 per episode of GOT. Why does HBO want me to buy cable when they would make LESS money from me if they offered a downloadable option themselves, plus force me to pay for a whole bunch of crap I don't want or need?
Time Warner price list for my area:
Digital TV $85.49/mo
If bundled with Time Warner Cable Internet $82.49/mo
Equipment
Digital Box (Each) $6.46 ea/mo
Universal Remote Control $0.36 ea/mo
Premium Channels
One premiums $15.99/mo
Standard Internet (10 Mbps download, 1 Mbps upload)
Standalone $57.95/mo
With Digital TV $50.45/mo
Ok, so for 10 episodes of GOT per season, HBO would get $50 from me if they offered a DRM-free HD downloadable option online.
However, if I buy cable, even if Time Warner gives them every penny of the premium subscription (which they don't), they'd get $47.98. And I would need to pay an extra $396.78 above that for something I don't need.
So, thanks, but no thanks. I'll pirate it.
I'm not costing them a penny. They are refusing to give me an option to pay them $50, for content they have already made and in which they could trivially setup a way to sell it to me.
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
My cable provider's cheapest package that you can get HBO with (they won't give you any premium channels if you have the VERY cheapest package) is $64/month. HD is $10 extra. HBO is another $20, so in order to watch Game of Thrones in HD I'd have to pay $94/month for cable and HBO.
There is literally no way I can legally obtain access to the show without paying $94/month. Well, I guess I could watch it in standard def... for the low, low price of $84/month.
Seriously I'd pay for this show on iTunes or Amazon or whatever if they'd let me, but they won't.
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
Incorrect. It's legally impossible to violate privacy if someone publishes the content publicly with the intent for the public to consume it. For example, if you tweet that you are about to commit a crime, you may be detained based on that information, just as you have the right to remain silent after arrest but can have anything you say used against you in a court of law.
To frame the broader context, if I make photocopies of a drawing of mine and give it to 100 people on the sidewalk, I cannot then claim a violation of privacy if some of them copy it and give those copies to yet more people. I may claim a violation of copyright, but privacy doesn't even enter into it. Neither does theft, since that was probably what you meant to say. I am still in possession of my original; no one broke into my home and took it from me.
You're objecting to people objecting to and circumventing HBO's business model. Your hyperbole and random attempts to drag in irrelevant and even opposing arguments in order to frame this debate as a moral issue instead of an economic one are thin at best, and willfully misleading at worst.
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
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Re: Legitimate versions? Try getting a cable subscription!
There isn't HBO here in my city at all(hint:I'm not in USA,and btw, my mother prefer to see GOT with voice dub in language she COULD understood(and on Wendsdays such version is usually becomes available)
So which legal options I have?
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Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
But we've done this experiment, science fans. There are dozens of torrent-only shows. All of the koolaid drinkers around here are making them and posting them. How many of them have 1/1000th of the "cultural significance" of HBO shows?
So if you're a scientist, not a Paywall-denier on loan from the Global Warming denying website, you've got to believe that the paywall is a big part of HBO's success.
Why? It gives them the money to pay professionals and nurture their talent. It collects the money directly instead of forcing the audience to support the show by purchasing a t-shirt they don't want to wear. This is why Mike is celebrating KickStarter, a site I call Paywall++. It cuts out the t-shirt-making middleman.
So if we're going to grant HBO a modicum of "cultural significance" we've got to admit that the scientific method says that there's strong evidence that this is because of the paywall, not the torrent-based piracy.
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Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
If that is scientific proof, I've got this scientifically proven method for cold fusion that would make you millions; I am only asking for a million for it.
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Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
Sorry, had to do it :)
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Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
So if we're going to grant HBO a modicum of "cultural significance" we've got to admit that the scientific method says that there's strong evidence that this is because of the paywall, not the torrent-based piracy.
Um, how exactly? Both the paywall, and the extreme piracy, have been happening since pretty much the beginning. The "scientific method" does not just casually determine one to be the cause and the other to be irrelevant. I for one never claimed I had "scientifically" determined that piracy played a role - in the original post I clearly said it was speculation (I wasn't even so bold as to call it hypothesis, because there is no clear way of testing it)
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Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
Second, you're right that you never used the word science. That's me.
The paywall is the secret sauce here. If we just try releasing things for free through torrents, we get ignored. But if we try a paywall and some jerks just happen to release it for free on torrent sites, well, we get cultural significance.
We've done the experiment and now we have scientific proof.
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Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
You have here an anecdote, a single instance, proving nothing apart from "this is how it happened this time". If you want something approaching proof, you're going to need a bit more rigor in your method. Here's what I propose:
Create 3 unique products of equal quality and general appeal (this is the tricky bit). For the first, put it behind a paywall with no possible way to obtain it apart from going through said paywall. The second, behind a paywall with options to circumvent the paywall. The third, open and free to all.
Release these products into the wild and see what happens, then report your findings back to us. I'll make no predictions, and I'll encourage you to refrain from speaking in absolutes until you've tested your hypothesis.
Anecdotally, I pirate the hell out of the current season of GoT because, with cable and HBO package upgrades, it would cost me about $50/month to watch it "legally". I pay for my basic cable and watch a fair amount of programs there, so the aggregate value is solid, but there is no reasonable pricing plan for current GoT content. I bought the first season on DVD (then ripped/converted it for portability and ease of use), and, again, WOULD PAY for the current season, but there's no way to buy only that, so HBO can pound sand until Season 2 comes out on DVD.
In closing, please seed.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
Why are the production values on movies higher than ad-supported TV? Because the ads don't yield as much money as the box office.
In the meantime, people have been playing with Internet-based television for years. YouTube is littered with them. Some are dumb, some are pretty good and most have some redeeming value. But none of them are close to having the cultural significance of HBO or anything on regular networks.
We've been running this experiment for years. "We Need Girlfriends" is over five years old now. Yet on Saturday night, we head to the movie theaters.
So it's not one anecdote. Can you point to any web-based, freely distributed show that's got as many viewers as a low-grade cable network?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
Besides, time has been a factor in companies like HBO establishing themselves. No web-based tv series has had the time to accrue 60 million subscribers. You're also forgetting there's a lot more competition for web-based tv series than HBO
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
Louis CK had what appeared to be a pretty rousing success doing this, but again the matter of equal quality and appeal is subject to debate.
I'll be reasonable, even if HBO suddenly offered their original offerings in this manner, people would still pirate them. However, I don't doubt that they would see a revenue bump as those lost customers would suddenly have an avenue to make the purchase. Bottom line, I don't see how it could hurt them to attract more paying customers from a group that is already showing that they like and follow the show. As it stands, their attitude shows an unwillingness to change that galls me.
Once upon a time, HBO was an innovator. They need to find their way back to that.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
1) Torrent-only shows have only the tiniest fraction of the budget for either production or advertising that an HBO show does. You need these things called "controlled variables" to actually run an experiment.
2) We call these strange science-like discussions that involve people, economic systems, and business models "social sciences." You might want to look the term up sometime.
3) The Guild.
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Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
HAHHAHHAHHAHHHHAAHAHHAHHA
This from the guy that says 'Hey, just buy basic cable so you can buy HBO.'
What a fucking joke.
By your inane logic if you took the torrent only shows and put them on HBO and took the HBO shows and made them torrent-only the two groups would magically flip positions on cultural significance.
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Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
Game of Thrones shirts go on sale at the end of Season Two at only $300 a pop. You don't really need that new suit for work, do you? ;-)
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Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Re: Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
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Re: Scientific Proof of the success of paywalls!
You are implying there is a binary choice either torrent only (which you claim will be a failure), or TV only (which they have gone for).
You miss the obvious third option which is to allow both TV access and downloading access. Remember torrenting or downloading don't have to be illegal. Look at bittorrent.co m - a legal torrenting site, or hulu.com - a TV downloading service.
The scientific method says nothing at all about the paywall being part of the cultural significance of the show. Indeed I would argue against that notion based on the data available.
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Cutting the Cord a Fad?!
That maybe could have been a legitimate argument a few years ago, but today with Netflix/Hulu/VODO/"other avenues"...Mr. Kessler is ridiculously out of touch with reality.
So called "piracy" is a servicing issue.
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Re: Cutting the Cord a Fad?!
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Until then you have to pay the people who do these things, your cable company. HBO just piggybacks off of this service that's offered by your cable company. And that's the reason you can't get it by itself.
Remember ON tv, where you had a box that just said off & ON You basically paid for ONE channel, and guess what, it wasn't $15
While I agree that HBO is dumb for not offering episodes of their shows via iTunes, etc. That's their choice. And it doesn't justify pirating the show.
When The Sopranos was on, I didn't watch it because I didn't have HBO. I did however wait until after all the seasons were out on DVD and bought all 7 seasons USED for I think about $75. And because I bought them used, HBO saw no revenue from me, and I got to watch the show. I now have all the discs and I can rip them, loan them or use them as frisbees if I so choose to.
You can play by the rules and still stick it to the man.
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Re:
It's not about sticking it to the man. Most people want to support shows they like, if its at all possible and within their budget. It's not their fault that all these companies have half-century old business models.
Piracy is a force that every company making digital goods has to deal with at some point. Understanding why people are pirating your software/media can help you make better business decisions.
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No one's saying it's justified. They're saying it's happening.
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Not that it's justified, but that it's being CAUSED by it.
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My only issue is that these companies try to stem the rate of progress as seen here - http://www.freepress.net/node/75731
There's a balanced way to make money off of progress, and it doe snot involve stunting it's growth.
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Re:
Damn dirty pirate!
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Re:
Likewise, ripping it would be considered just as bad(and illegal to boot, assuming the discs have any form of DRM on them) as if you'd pirated it as well, so you may think you're playing by the rules here, but as far as HBO and those like them are concerned, you're just another dirty pirate.
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STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
Here are the facts:
HBO follows a business model where people *MUST* buy their premium services for watching their shows. IF you don't like this model,wait for the DVD/Bluray release or DON"T WATCH THE SHOW.PERIOD. Don't justify your piracy actions.
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Re: STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
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Re: Re: STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
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Re: STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
Here are a couple facts for you:
Shows like GoT are freely and readily available in HD quality within hours of airing.
Torrenting and streaming are easy, convenient, and, if you take some care, nigh on impossible to stop or police.
There are certain among the torrent/streaming crowd who would pay for these shows if there were a convenient and reasonably priced service through which to do so.
There is no convenient and reasonably priced service through which to download/stream these shows.
When you consider the above facts, this sleazy pirate (read: lost customer) will choose to circumvent the established distribution channels until such time as HBO's business model becomes more agreeable.
Disclaimer: Not all sleazy pirates are lost customers, but I feel safe in saying that I'm not the only one.
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Re: STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
Most of these arguments are that HBO doesn't need a distribution channel that costs 5 to 10 times the cost of the premium to serve its customers.
The arguments being made are that HBO is rejecting a large number of potential customers.
Piracy is just a side effect.
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Re: STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
Turn about is fair play, no?
Of course pirates don't respect your IP -- very many are still your customers, or could be, and as much as you loathe their actions, they are as equally offended (justifiably) by your aversion to a digital and consumer-friendly economy.
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Re: STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
And I'm not a pirate, I'm a space viking. :3
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Re: STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
I'd rather wait for an upstart company to make and improve a NEW business model, which caters to ALL consumers, including those brushed aside by the old stagnate ways
Would a company, catering to the needs and wants of a market, which happens to be in direct competition to a long standing and well established media corporation/s, ever be allowed to flourish, i dont know, why dont you ask Mr Dotcom, and the very early stages of his attempt
Theres is a market, if they choose to ignore it, then they deserve to loose profit, if they continue to abuse their established influence in the market to block other companies who want to cater to that market, a market, artificially created by these established media companies
And its not all about piracy, cheaper second hand products for will do just as well
"Thats business" is not gonna cut it, when that "business" is actively blocked from evolving
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Re: STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
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I want to pay!
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Re: I want to pay!
Same with me. I have subscribed to Pandora for the last two years. Since I got the subscription I haven't downloaded much music at all.
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Now that that's out of the way bob or no bob if the entertainment vendor won't make what they have available simply, easily and at the lowest cost possible including streaming and torrenting then fans of the show shut out for whatever reason will...ahhhhh...pirate. Even if they'd much sooner pay if they only could.
Fad or no fad if HBO is not doing faddish things like streaming or, even, torrenting the show they're losing money they'd otherwise be bringing in.
This is known as cutting off your nose to spite your face.
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uh.. there are mobile options
welcome to the 21st century.
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Re: uh.. there are mobile options
Id est, you only get to watch the shows you want on mobile if you pay about $75 a month for something you don't want.
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Re:
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Problem solved.
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I WILL PAY
I would pay something like $4.99/month to watch Game of Thrones HD streaming whenever I want. I don't have cable.
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Logic
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tried to buy it, couldn't
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@53
haha
especially ANYTHING HD/BLURAY
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HBO, GOT and the future
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The air times and rerun times of GoT in my area make it impossible for me to watch due to graduate school and work schedule.
And their stupid stream service is US only so I can't pay for their on-demand service (HBO Go) even if I wanted to pay twice!
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HBO keeps up their pointless efforts
Also, I think they are still sending out threatening letters. Today they are only catching new users or perhaps the very lazy. Anyone who wants to use bittorrent without the risk of this happening should just buy VPN service from one of the many providers. For about $6/mo on an annual plan, there is no way for some HBO corporate hacker to find your IP address and start bothering you.
I wonder what they are accomplishing by continuing these efforts to slow torrents and menace downloaders. I am inclined to think they are being sold a bill of goods by the companies that provide these services, and that they are being downloaded just as much as companies that don't do these ineffectual measures.
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