

Who’s Pirating Game of Thrones, And Why? - pwg
http://torrentfreak.com/whos-pirating-game-of-thrones-and-why-120520/

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makecheck
I guess producers are used to a world where it takes agreements with local
outlets in many parts of the world to figure out how a show will be broadcast
in each region.

When a pirated show is instantly available in a region that would otherwise
wait a week, that shows an industry asleep at the wheel. Producers should ask
themselves some hard questions if they're unable to deliver a _better_ format
when they're the ones being paid for it.

As I see it the future looks something like this:

1\. ISPs and other infrastructure companies start charging much, much more for
bandwidth but _in exchange_ they invest hugely in it. The default assumption
would be that everyone and his grandmother needs obscene amounts of data
because this is now how they're watching TV, etc. There would be exceptions
for people who somehow use very little, just like now where some people don't
own a TV and don't buy cable.

2\. Content companies make deals with these ISPs that basically say this:
"hey, I'll produce lots of stuff people want, which will cause them to
download obscene amounts of data; in exchange, give me a guaranteed cut of
whatever you're charging them".

3\. There would be a way to buy temporary bandwidth, e.g. instead of a pay-
per-view movie you rent an hour of "high bandwidth" and download whatever you
feel like watching in that time.

In other words, companies have to stop pretending the Internet isn't the best
way to distribute things, and customers have to stop pretending that things
don't cost money.

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matt4711
step 2 sounds like the business model of a cable company (kind of).

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antihero
I don't have a TV, and cannot stream it on whatever legit services because
Virgin Media in our area is totally abysmal in evenings. Thus, if I have it
grabbed overnight I can watch it the next day, and dodge spoilers on Monday.

It sucks, but TV is a fairly flawed model for content consumption.

