Just How Much Do Shows Like Game Of Thrones Owe To Piracy?

from the more-than-they-like-to-admit,-I-suspect dept

The HBO show Game of Thrones has become something of a symbol for TV piracy as a response to lack of availability, ever since it was used as an example in a comic by Matthew Inman (which was then reprised as a post by MG Siegler, minus the jokes). This is probably because it's ridiculously addictive (once you start watching, there's no way you're going to stop before someone stabs that Joffrey kid). This month the second season began, and after all the criticisms of their distribution scheme, HBO accidentally threw frustrated online viewers a bone by leaking the second episode nearly a week ahead of schedule—someone working on the Dutch edition of HBO Go must have accidentally flipped a switch, and winter came early. But before that happened, the season premier aired to a massive ratings jump, which most people anticipated. Why? Because, they reasoned, the nine-month gap between seasons gave new viewers a chance to catch up with (and get hooked on) the series by watching season one on HBO On Demand and HBO Go.

It's a good theory, but only some are prepared to mention the elephant in the room: plenty of people (quite possibly the majority) caught up through unauthorized streams and torrents, just like Matthew Inman. And that brings us to the bigger elephant lurking in the whole house: how much has piracy contributed to the rise of HBO-style television? Would we have complex, high-concept, critically acclaimed shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones without it? Many people attribute this fundamental shift in the nature of popular television, from episodic towards serialized, to DVDs and legitimate digital sources—but I'd wager that piracy is a much more significant factor.

There are two main reasons. Firstly, the ability to watch any episode any time makes such can't-miss-an-episode shows less of a commitment. This, alone, is the single biggest contributing factor to the popularity of heavily serialized television, and it is impossible to explain it entirely with DVDs and sources like iTunes. Many cable subscribers turn to piracy as a way to catch missed episodes, and that safety net prevents serialized shows from alienating viewers and losing momentum. Secondly, unauthorized sources are especially popular with the fanatics—the people who evangelize "must watch" shows to their friends and coworkers, and who create memes with screencaps to spread on Tumblr and Facebook. That's not to mention the amateur critics and TV bloggers who generate buzz (in fact, there is a bit of a back and forth going on over the ethics of piracy in the critic community).

Of course, as digital offerings get better, more and more of this kind of activity happens through legitimate channels instead of piracy (not like anyone's been saying that all along, or anything). But services like Netflix got to the table once the serial television trend was in full-swing, so they don't account for its inception. Some people fear that television piracy will put at end to such ambitious undertakings in the medium—but they should stop to consider the hand it played in making them possible to begin with.

Filed Under: game of thrones, leak, piracy, television
Companies: hbo, netflix

How Warner Bros. Should Have Responded To Harry Potter Leak

from the seriously? dept

Not this again. With the news that the the first 36 minutes of the new Harry Potter movie have leaked online, Warner Bros. has gone the traditionally braindead, clueless path of demanding the heads of the leakers:

"Last night a portion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was stolen and illegally posted on the internet," Warner Bros. said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "This constitutes a serious breach of copyright violation and theft of Warner Bros. property. We are working actively to restrict and/or remove copies that may be available. Also, we are vigorously investigating this matter and will prosecute those involved to the full extent of the law."

This is, of course, reminiscent to the leak of Wolverine last year -- except even more ridiculous on the part of Warner Bros. As we noted when Wolverine leaked, there were plenty of ways that the studio could have responded to this that didn't involve acting like overprotective children, but instead got fans excited. I came up with a "suggested" response at the time, and I'll do the same for Warner Bros here (no charge!):

Hey Harry Potter fans! We know how excited you all are for the next installment of the Harry Potter movie series this weekend. We're pretty excited too. Obviously someone here was so excited that they went and leaked the first 36 minutes of the film online. We didn't authorize this, and really wished it didn't happen, but it's out there. We're sure many of you will probably want to check it out, but we think that the full movie experience in the theater is really something quite special. If you really must watch the leaked clip, be forewarned: you're going to have to wait until the end of the week to find out what actually happens, and you're going to be dying in suspense, so we'd suggest you hang on and see the whole thing in the theater this Friday...

Or something like that. Once again, can you imagine how much better fans would respond to that sort of thing than to the chest-thumping silly threats? Besides, this is only 36 minutes of the movie. A bunch of movie studios have already released the beginnings of various movies to try to get people interested. If I remember correctly, all the way back in 2000 or so, the movie Chicken Run released the first 30 minutes or so to get people to go to the theater and other films have done that as well. So I'm having a really hard time figuring out exactly how this could possibly be bad for Warner Bros.

Well, unless the first 36 minutes absolutely sucks... But if that's the case, it shouldn't be about running to the authorities, but to the folks who made the bad movie.

Filed Under: harry potter, leak, movies
Companies: warner bros.

And, Of Course, ACTA Leaks: Some Good, Plenty Of Bad

from the this-is-not-a-good-idea dept

I imagine it will come as little surprise to anyone, but over the weekend, the latest draft of ACTA leaked. You can read it in wiki format over here. While it is "cleaned up" a lot from the last version, and appears close to being done, there are still some pretty big areas of disagreement. Specifically, the EU is still holding out for ACTA to cover patents as well as copyrights and trademarks, while the US doesn't want patents included for a variety of reasons. Also, as expected, the US has dropped explicit secondary liability language, but includes plenty of other vague language about anti-circumvention and "cooperative efforts within the business community," that you should be worried about. The "cooperative efforts" is code words for "ISPs should become entertainment industry cops." It's not direct secondary liability, but there's enough wiggle room there that it won't take long for the entertainment industry and its "friends" to start pointing out that ISPs that don't kick people off the internet, or don't hand over names of people, aren't making those "cooperative efforts." Just wait and see. In the meantime, considering the amount of research that has come out this year alone suggesting that neither counterfeiting nor copyright infringement are the big problems they're made out to be, why hasn't anyone asked the participating countries to explain why ACTA is needed in the face of this new evidence?

Filed Under: acta, anti-circumvention, copyright, eu, leak, secondary liability, us

MGMT Album Leaks... Band Wants To Give Official Version For Free, But Denied

from the so-much-for-that dept

It's pretty common these days for musical releases from big name bands to leak early, followed by the band pushing up the release date. In the latest such case (sent in by reader Matthew), the band MGMT had its latest album leaked early, and then responded by putting up a free streaming version of the entire album. They're not the first band to do this, but what's interesting is the note on the band's website, where they claim they wanted to actually make the whole thing downloadable, but were told that wasn't allowed:

Hey everybody, the album leaked, and we wanted you to be able to hear it from us. We wanted to offer it as a free download but that didn't make sense to anyone but us

Well, actually, it makes sense to lots of us, but we're not running Sony Music. It's great that the band was able to put out a streaming version, and doesn't seem to mind that the album itself leaked, but not putting up an official downloadable version means that people will still be getting the unofficial version, and MGMT and Sony miss out on an opportunity to actually connect with the fans (such as by asking for an email address or giving people additional reasons to buy as they download).

Filed Under: free, leak, mgmt, music, streaming
Companies: sony music

Peter Jackson Freaks Out About BitTorrent Leak Of The Lovely Bones

from the get-over-it dept

paperbag alerts us to the news that Peter Jackson is the latest filmmaker to go semi-ballistic over a film leaking to the internet. His new film, The Lovely Bones, apparently showed up online via a screener copy, leading Jackson to warn:

He stated that although up until [now] he did not hold a grudge against file sharing, he is heavily disappointed that the leak even happened to begin with. He also stated that "those responsible for the leak will be brought to justice with the maximum prosecution of the law in mind" and that "anyone who is caught illegally downloading the film will also be prosecuted to the fullest", both statements which are sure to lose him a few fans.

Jackson is definitely a director with a huge and loyal following. These are people will see his movies no matter what -- even if they happen to download them. It's a bit surprising that he would go to such an extreme, even to the point of claiming that those who are caught downloading the film will be prosecuted (though, we wonder how he's going to figure out who downloads the film). Being anti-fan is no way to build a business these days.

Filed Under: bittorrent, file sharing, leak, movies, peter jackson, the lovely bones

Could Wolverine's Leaking Have Helped It At The Box Office?

from the seems-possible dept

We still can't understand why Fox studios acted the way it did over the leak of the Wolverine movie. There were so many better options that didn't involve freaking out and eventually wasting FBI resources. We did note, when the movie was released, what a fantastic opening weekend it had. Of course, some argued that it would have had an even better opening weekend without the leak, but, of course, no one knows for sure.

However, Ross Pruden points us to an interesting analysis by Reid Rosefelt trying to more carefully analyze the leak's impact on Wolverine. Rosefelt compares Wolverine's opening weekend to lots of other highly touted movies, and then even breaks out the movies that were "the latest installment of a very lucrative franchise" (of which there were a bunch this year). In that class, Wolverine earned a lot more than any of those other similar movies, with the exceptions of Twilight and Transformers -- and, again, it's worth remembering that Wolverine got dreadful reviews. But it is worth noting that Wolverine outgrossed other highly touted "franchise" movies like Harry Potter's latest and Star Trek -- both of which got much better reviews.

Rosefelt also does a nice job pointing out how silly Hollywood's new favorite line is whenever anyone points out the record year at the box office. We've seen it from our usual cast of Hollywood insiders who frequent the comments here, where they say that the box office doesn't matter. Piracy is really impacting DVD sales and that's what will kill Hollywood. Of course, this is funny on a variety of levels, starting with the fact if Hollywood had had its way, the DVD player would never have existed, because home video machines (you may recall) were the "Boston Strangler" to the movie industry. It's also amusing because Hollywood has been working hard to prevent one of the biggest DVD buyers, Redbox, from buying its DVDs. Rosefelt points out that the data does show that DVD sales are down, but notes that rentals are way up. It appears that people just find it easier to rent than to buy -- and a large part of that may be uncertainty over HD format (and the ridiculous price put on many Blu-ray discs). Once again, it's looking like the decline in DVD sales might not be the fault of piracy, but of the industry and its own practices yet again.

Again, none of this shows for certain that the Wolverine leak helped at the box office, but it's hard to take seriously any argument that it was harmed. Wolverine did massively well at the box office and outshone many other movies from equally popular franchises, which received much better reviews.

Filed Under: box office, leak, piracy, wolverine

Microsoft's COFEE Computer Forensic Tools Leaked

from the that-can't-be-good dept

Last year, we wrote about Microsoft's COFEE tools, which are a set of computer forensic and auditing tools that Microsoft puts on a USB key and gives to law enforcement to use in trying to extract info from a computer. There was some fear that it was a "back door," but people insisted it was no such thing, but just a collection of basic tools. Still, the fact that the system was promoted as being useful for decrypting passwords and analyzing a computer's data and internet activity seemed troubling. We noted that if Microsoft was giving it out to law enforcement, it seemed likely that others would have access to it as well.

Well, late last week, reports started showing up noting that COFEE itself had been leaked to various file sharing sites. Apparently, the program had been quite sought after at private tracker What.cd -- though, after it was leaked there, the admins actually removed the torrent.

Still, you have to imagine that the software is very much out there. So, the question still remains, is this a big deal or not? When we did our original post, many people insisted that there was no big deal in Microsoft COFEE and it was just basic everyday auditing software. Yet, when even What.cd is removing the torrent, claiming they "didn't like" what they saw when they examined the software, in terms of "the potential impact on the site and security of our users and staff," it does raise certain questions that are similar to those we originally raised.

So, once again, let's get some feedback from the folks reading here. Is this really a big deal? Or is it just your ordinary tools?

Filed Under: cofee, forensics, leak, privacy
Companies: microsoft

Anti-File Sharing Lobbyists/Lawyers Shove Each Other Aside To Blame P2P Rather Than Dumb Guy For Congressional Leak

from the try-harder dept

A couple years ago, some entertainment industry lobbyists hit on a new idea for trying to get Congress to legislate against file sharing software: figure out ways to blame it for stupid employees. More specifically, figure out a way to blame it for stupid employees... in the government. So, those lobbyists have worked hard to highlight every single time some sort of sensitive government information was leaked via file sharing programs, and then even got Congress to investigate file sharing programs, rather than government security policies or how the government deals with stupid employees who put sensitive information on home computers that also have file sharing software installed improperly (set to share everything). The latest is that they were even able to get a ridiculously poorly thought-out law proposed that would cause problems for nearly every software you use online. Brilliant.

So, of course, as the news broke that there was a leak of a Congressional ethics investigation, because a staffer put the document on his or her home machine that had file sharing software on it, the usual crowd of folks wasted no time at all in highlighting the use of P2P software and presenting file sharing as if it (rather than dumb employees and bad government security) was a huge national security threat and (of course) to urge Congresss to pass laws against file sharing programs. The one thing in common? All of those calls come from people who get paychecks from the entertainment industry.

Funny, I don't see them calling for laws that would lock down and secure laptops, even though government employees lose thousands of laptops every year -- many with sensitive information. I don't see them calling for laws against email software, though I would bet that a lot more sensitive information is leaked by people simply emailing it to the wrong party. They don't call for laws against the telephone, even though people leak info over the phone. What? No laws against dining in restaurants where you might hear some info from folks at the next table? This has nothing to do with file sharing software. It has everything to do with poor security setup and dumb government employees. The claims that this happens so often are misleading. The federal government employs nearly 3 million people. We hear about these sorts of "leaks" once every year or so. Out of 3 million people, if anything, I'd be amazed there are so few leaks.

Filed Under: congressional ethics, file sharing, leak, p2p

Wilco Shows The Entertainment Industry How To Respond To A Leak

from the see?-not-so-hard... dept

Last month, when the work print of the movie Wolverine leaked online, the studio 20th Century Fox went ballistic, sending out all sorts of threats and getting the FBI involved. We had suggested that if they had taken a different approach, they could have turned the leak into something beneficial. Our suggestion was to make the following statement:

Hey Wolverine fans! We know that you're all looking forward to the release of the movie next month. We're excited too! By now you may have heard that an early totally unfinished version has been leaked online. It's missing a whole bunch of stuff -- including some amazing special effects -- and honestly, this version isn't a finished product at all. We think you'll get a much better overall experience by waiting for the full finished product, but we certainly understand that some of you just can't wait (trust us, we feel the same way!). If that's the case, please, feel free to check it out, but please remember that this isn't even close to the final version. If anything, think of this as a "behind-the-scenes" peek of just what a movie looks like before all the real "movie magic" gets put in there. If you do check it out, we hope you'll join us May 1st to check out the finalized version as well on the big screen the way we intended for you to see this awesome movie. It's just a month away!

And, of course, we had people from the movie industry tell us we were crazy (some funny emails from the movie studios, actually), and that such a plan would never work, and how could they not call in the FBI and threaten legal action. Apparently, my suggestion was the dumbest thing ever.

And... yet... when others actually do something like that, it appears to be working. Reader mikez points us to the news that the band Wilco discovered that its upcoming album has been leaked online, so they put up their own streaming version of the album for all to listen to and released the following statement:

"Well we made it nearly a month with copies of Wilco the album floating around out there before it leaked. Pretty impressive restraint in this day and age. But the inevitable happened last night. Since we know you're curious and probably have better things to do than scour the internet for a download though we do understand the attraction of the illicit we ve posted a stream of the full album...Feel free to refer to it as wilco the stream if you must."

See? Turns out it's not so difficult. And, while 20th Century Fox was getting slammed left and right for its actions, Twitter this morning is abuzz with people talking about how awesome the new Wilco album is and how excited they are that it's coming out.

Filed Under: fans, leak, response, wilco, wolverine