
I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere - kevinjohn
http://http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2013/04/pirated-game-of-thrones-season-premiere/
======
calinet6
Pirating has become a much higher quality entertainment experience than any
other. The pace of development is insane, and the things you can do with
pirated content these days are, in a word, wonderful.

Let's say I pirated a show called Fest of Kings. The hour Fest of Kings aired,
it would already be on my home media server. It would have downloaded at about
6MB/second (that's MegaBytes) over a secure SSL connection and be done in
about 5 minutes flat in 720p HD. The moment it finished downloading, it would
be available to watch on a beautiful media center in my living room, as well
as on any internet-connected computer, as well as on my phone (Plex is
amazing).

This is better than DVR, it's better than On Demand, and it's a breeze to use
(it's not a breeze to set up, but whatever).

It's also _not free._ You pay for certain services you download from, you pay
for the Plex Pro subscription to be able to stream your content to your phone,
you pay for the Plex app, you pay for various management apps. It's not
ridiculously expensive, but it's not free.

If there was a legitimate content source that did all this well, and gave me
the content I wanted when I wanted it (right when it airs), I would be paying
for it. But there isn't. This is a far better experience than any alternative.
It's just awesome.

And that's why piracy is a problem.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
_“It's also not free.”_

Sure, but the creators also don’t receive any compensation from you. It’s like
jumping the turnstile at a subway station, figuring that because you bought
NewBalance sneakers you're already paying the government for providing public
transport.

That said, if I could pay, say $100 a month for ‘all you can eat’ pirating
(providing that money would go to the studios and artists) I’d love to.

~~~
josteink
I think his point was that people aren't pirating purely because it is free,
but because the experience is superior in every way measurable, even to the
point that people will pay for pirating.

User experience counts. You'd thought companies like Apple and Google had
taught us that by now.

~~~
alan_cx
Indeed. Even in the UK were we have the brilliant BBC iPlayer, downloading
from other places is still a better experience. Quality and speed win out.

Of course, the BBC gets it funding from a licence fee, so it kinda doesn't
matter (I pay the licence fee there for I have already paid up, so what does
it matter how I see it?) apart from the fact that the BBC cant include a non
BBC download in its figures.

I think that to be honest the experience point is a red herring. Its really
about it being free. My position here is that in show or movie advertising, or
product placement, is the best way to go. That way we get the show for free,
and the producers get their advertising money.

If I in the UK was able to go to, say, HBO in the US and download a show for
free, I would. Even if that meant a special international free version that
was non HD and contained adverts in the middle, or even product placement. But
I cant, so I would go for other sources.

This will only settle down when they release shows for free at the point of
watching, and find other ways to make their money.

Capitalists: this is supply and demand. Its very basic and the fact that so
many huge businesses and politicians seem to have forgotten the most basic law
of economics is frankly contemptible and offensive to any one with half a
function brain. Worse still is the government interference that seems to want
to use law to criminalise citizens who are obeying the laws of supply and
demand, while offering a protection racket to the very organisation who should
be primarily guided by it, but chose to ignore it. This, IMHO, is a vile and
disgusting abuse of law, society and government. Its up to the business to
adapt, not have their old control freak behaviour endorsed and protected by
government, who's election funding depends on such organisations.

And BTW, this betrays the biggest flaw in US democracy, which has become
little more than those with money get to buy the government and dictate
legislation. The military industrial lot paid for Bush and we get war. The
media pay for Obama and we get draconian protection rackets.

Oppps, again, longer than I intended......

------
citricsquid

        People have always been, and always will be, willing 
        to pay for good products. We have always understood 
        Return on Investment, even if we don’t call it that.
    

Which is why World Of Goo[0], a fantastic indie game that was priced at $20,
that has a 90 / 100 Metacritic score[1], that has absolutely no DRM is a game
that had over 80% piracy rate at launch? The "People want to pay it's just the
companies stopping them" argument is so much bunk it's insulting that people
continue to write it.

People want stuff consequence free, if they have to pay to get rid of those
consequences then they will. For a lot of people the consequences of media
piracy are non-existant, they don't believe they will ever be caught (and it's
not as if "getting caught" even matters) so the only result of media piracy
is... saving money! So they do it. For me a consequence of media piracy is
knowing I did not pay for something I have, that is why I don't engage in
media piracy. For people that don't have this feeling that they should pay why
would they?

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Goo>

[1] <http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/world-of-goo>

[2] [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/15/world-of-goo-
pira...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/15/world-of-goo-piracy-
rate-82/)

~~~
marknutter
And so are you suggesting that if it _had_ DRM it wouldn't have seen such a
high piracy rate? The fact is, there's going to be some level of piracy no
matter what you do. There will always be people out there who will obtain the
game but would have never otherwise bought the game. There will always be
people out there for whom $20 is a reasonable price and will gladly pay it to
obtain the game. It's up to the game author to determine the optimal price
point to maximize their return. The option of preventing piracy, frankly, will
never exist (barring egregious internet freedom encroachments). And people
like you can continue to feel morally superior to everyone, if it helps you
sleep at night.

~~~
pc86
Does 80% really qualify as "some level of piracy?"

Clearly there is a group of people who will always pirate what they want,
regardless of the price or what it is (movies, TV shows, games, Photoshop). If
that's the case, then I think it's also fair to say that there is a certain
group of people for whom even the smallest bit of DRM would cause them to
either go without the movie/show/program (I think the most likely) or buy it
outright.

~~~
i_cannot_hack

        > even the smallest bit of DRM would cause them to [...] 
        > go without the movie/show/program (I think the most likely)
    

And this would benefit the producer how? It would only serve to reduce the
userbase, and thereby dampening the word-of-mouth spread and the perceived
popularity the game, thus harming the sales of the product.

Of course, it those people bought the game instead, it could make up for it.
But you said it was the less likely scenario.

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Swizec
I pay for HBO and they would have aired Game of Thrones on Monday evening this
week. A day later than in the US, which is fine by me.

But I was on a plane at that time and I have boxing practice when GoT airs
anyway. So I shamelessly pirated the episode while at the airport (when did
airport hotspots become 3.5MB/s monsters anyway?) intending to watch it on my
laptop while flying over the atlantic.

I ended up watching it yesterday morning as I woke up at 6am due to jetlag.

I feel I did nothing wrong.

~~~
crusso
Exactly. You've paid for the content but simply changed the way you receive
it. Ethically, I think you're on pretty strong grounds.

It's unfortunate that folks like us who would like to be able to do common
sense things with content are caught in a war between extremists on both
sides. We have the rabid content creators and protectors suing everyone for
every infraction and corrupting our legal system in the process - then we have
the piracy zealots who feel no compunction with having an artist make zero
from creating a great deal of desirable content because "information/data
should be free".

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claudius
If Sky doesn’t offer the service you expect, why do you keep paying for that
insufficient service? They will hardly listen to someone saying ‘I don’t like
the way you do things, but I’ll pay you anyways for not doing anything’ – on
the other hand, were they only paid if they actually delivered the expected
service, they at least _might_ consider doing so.

(Also the link is currently a little broken with duplicate http-s.)

~~~
mhaymo
How else can he support the creators of the show?

~~~
claudius
Not at all? Both they and his cable provider are to blame for this mess and
they are delivering as little of the service he expects as his cable provider.
I am rather positive that, given an ‘enthusiastic’ creator/producer, there
would be ways for Sky to air the show at the same time as it airs in the US.

------
Samuel_Michon
I agree with all of sentiments in the blog post but this:

 _“Why should almost 40% of my time be taken up by adverts for something I am
ALREADY paying for?”_

Your cable subscription is a _partial_ payment for viewing the shows. It's
works in the same way as buying a newspaper or magazine: the revenues from
newsstand sales are a fraction of what it costs to create and distribute the
publication. The rest is paid through advertising. Even more, subscription
prices are kept low so that the publishers can claim a certain degree of
readership, thus being able to ask certain advertising rates.

~~~
calinet6
I wonder how much people would pay for advertising-free television?

~~~
edent
In the UK we pay £145 per year [0] - call that US$250. For that we get 3 HD
channels, 2 SD channels, 2 kids channels, a 24 hour news channel, a dozen
national radio stations, and a bunch of local stations. All FTA via your
aerial.

Oh, and you get the BBC websites.

All without adverts.

Totally worth it.

[0] [http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-
one/topics/tv...](http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-
one/topics/tv-licence-types-and-costs-top2/)

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Most countries have public service broadcasters. However, the UK has the
largest broadcasting corporation in the world, with arguably the highest
quality programming. PBS in the US and CBC in Canada have far smaller budgets,
which is weird given population size of their respective countries. Perhaps if
tax payers would ask to pay more for public broadcasting, we wouldn’t even
need commercial stations.

EDIT: I just found out that most of the funding for public broadcasters in the
US doesn’t even come from taxes. Canada's CBC receives two-thirds of its
funding from taxes.

------
imgabe
I did too. I would happily pay a reasonable price for the show, but HBO
doesn't offer an option to do that. I cancelled my cable subscription months
ago because there's really only a few shows I want to watch and they're on
HBO. Paying an extra $50 a month ($600 a year) to watch two shows is
ridiculous.

I like the way Downton Abbey was distributed on Amazon. It was, I think, $2 an
episode with a small discount if you paid for the whole season at one. New
episodes became available to stream as soon as they aired. I'd happily watch
every show I like that way If I could.

~~~
wtvanhest
"I would happily pay a reasonable price for the show"

The price they are charging is the bundled price. The fact that you do not get
enough value from the bundled price means that you don't have to pay for it,
but it also doesn't mean you can steal it.

If you go to the store and someone is selling a 30 pack of toilet paper but
you only need 5 rolls because you live alone, you can't simply take 5 rolls,
and say, "the price I would have to pay to get 5 rolls is ridiculous, so I'm
not paying".

"HBO doesn't offer an option to do that" because they have determined that the
revenue/profit they earn from bundling HBO with cable is higher then by
selling HBO alone since cable isn't as desirable as it used to be.

The way to think about it is, HBO costs $600/year and you get some crappy free
TV with it.

~~~
illuminate
"The way to think about it is, HBO costs $600/year and you get some crappy
free TV with it."

I find plenty of the "free" TV so offensively terrible that I'll nearly pay
more for the TV I want just so no subsidization hits the rest.

------
Jleagle
Link doesnt work - [http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2013/04/pirated-game-of-
throne...](http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2013/04/pirated-game-of-thrones-
season-premiere/)

------
rplnt
I pirate all the shows I watch. I know of no legal on-demand service that is
available to me. I guess that if there were such service available it would be
way too expensive (it's international market, highest price is usually the
global one). But it would be something...

I wouldn't watch them in TV if I had the chance (I don't) either, because of
all the ads. So if I want to watch the shows (I know I don't have to), I
pirate them. Luckily it's not illegal for me, but it's still not the best
thing to do I guess.

For now, I'm glad that I don't have to pirate software (games included) and
just have to restrict myself (prices, see above). Though sometimes I wish I
pirated a game instead of buying it (GTA IV for example - never played it
thanks to their DRM mindset).

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djhworld
I have a netflix subscription and find it more convenient than pirating. It's
less of an effort for me to sit down, turn on my PS3 and run netflix than it
is to find a torrent, download a huge file, transfer the file to a NAS, turn
on my PVR and select the file to watch.

Unfortunately netflix doesn't have everything and the netflix UK selection is
sometimes really far behind what the US get so I have to either change my DNS
to receive the US content, or as a last resort...pirate.

~~~
calinet6
Netflix is a good start, but what I want is Spotify for television.

Name your price, networks, I'd pay for a super-premium Netflix in a heartbeat.
It just doesn't exist yet.

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jmduke
The argument of "I paid for it so I can pirate it" is especially funny when
coupled with "Too many ads!"

When you watch a show on cable, you're not just paying with your subscription
but with your eyeballs. Advertisements, shockingly, aren't designed merely to
irritate the viewer but to bring in more revenues.

(What do you think is going to happen when Sky realizes that their viewership
is down even if their membership is stable?)

~~~
sp332
That's addressed in the article.

 _And Sky get this. If you wait another 24 hours, the show appears on “Sky
Anytime”, and you can watch it with no adverts and at any time you please. The
adverts are an additional tax on the consumer for having the audacity to watch
the programme when Sky decides.

Are you playing by the rules? Yes? Are you paying for the show? Yes. Are you
watching it when we say? Yes? Are you watching it where we say you can? Yes?
Good for you, here’s some adverts as a punishment.

And people wonder why that business model is failing…_

~~~
jmduke
I read that. I was addressing this:

> _The adverts are an additional tax on the consumer for having the audacity
> to watch the programme when Sky decides._

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philbarr
You need a : in your link there fella.

------
smacktoward
_"20 hours is a LONG time in Social media terms. It’s a long time in the
news."_

This is the most pathetic justification for piracy I've ever heard.

You couldn't wait twenty hours to watch it legally? _Twenty hours?_ Many of
which you'd probably be sleeping through anyway? That's not even a single day.
You can't wait _a single day?_

It's like listening to a kid justify tearing open his Christmas presents on
Christmas Eve.

 _"Wanting to watch GoT spoiler free is incredibly difficult when you have a
20 hour gap between airing in the US and airing in the UK."_

Not really. I live in the States, but I TiVoed the premiere episode and
watched it the next day. (The horror!) I stayed away from recap articles and
had no problems avoiding spoilers.

Besides, you said earlier in the article that _you had already read the
books!_ Which means you have already pre-spoilered yourself, no? You already
know every major plot twist the TV show is ever going to throw at you. The
first two seasons followed the books pretty much note for note; did you think
the third was going to suddenly change direction and bring in the cast of
"Glee" for a big musical number?

 _"Basically, it means staying off Social Media and almost all “geek-news”
outlets for a whole day. For some people thats easy enough, I’m not a huge
social media fan/user anyway – but my JOB dictates that I check in on the
different channels at least a few times each day... So I now have a choice:
either don’t do my job properly and ignore my friends for a whole day, or
accept that I’ll see some spoilers and my enjoyment of the show will be
reduced."_

That one's easy -- if your job and the scheduling of your favorite TV show
conflict, your job wins. Because _you're a grown-up._ Right?

Right?

~~~
claudius
> It's like listening to a kid justify tearing open his Christmas presents on
> Christmas Eve.

I always opened my presents on Christmas Eve :)

> if your job and the scheduling of your favorite TV show conflict, your job
> wins.

Exactly, and the TV series/cable provider has one happy customer fewer that
could have been satisfied easily. Which was pretty much the point of his blog
post.

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notmarkus
Wouldn't it be a little strange for the network creating the show (HBO) to air
it _after_ some other network? The author says Sky could have aired it at 10pm
in England, but this is hours before HBO would air it in the US. You could
maybe make the argument that Sky should air it at 2AM -- simultaneous to HBO's
airing. But premiering HBO's show before HBO?

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Nursie
I don't really care about a delay of a day or so, and now I know that sky
atlantic show some of this stuff that quickly I might even subscribe.

Of course the ideal would be ad-free, on-demand and not geographically
restricted, but that doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone.

~~~
noptic
Thanks to piracy thinks are getting better. now most us series are translated
within weeks. Supernatural had a 3 years(!) delay in germany.

There will allways be people who want everything for free but there REALLY are
people like me who want to pay but get rejected because of "licensing issues"
aka "wait till it is published in your country even if you hate the voice over
and want to watch the original anyway"

------
mikecane
I think it's time for some people to admit that when it comes to certain
things, they have become addicts. This is not a condemnation. I was there with
Forbrydelsen III (which at least was never going to be shown in the US as-is,
and DK had the sense to open the stream worldwide due to ex-pat outrage, and
which I not only watched streaming in Danish without subtitles but then also
downloaded later when fansubs were available).

~~~
Svip
Fansubs of Danish programming? Now I've heard that as well!

~~~
mikecane
Forbrydelsen was a worldwide phenomenon. Surprised you never heard of it. AMC
in the US re-did it (badly) as The Killing.

~~~
Svip
Considering I am Danish, it would incredibly surprising if I had never heard
of it. Personally, I am not a big fan of it, it was just a bunch of mumbling
going on. I needed subtitles too!

------
gavinlynch
Pretty simple take: I admit, I've grown bored of listening to most people
justify pirating. Is it a big deal? Not really. Does it likely hurt content
producers? Probably. Do I personally pay for most of the art projects I'm
interested in? Sure.

But I like this article. He's already paying for the show, why not watch it
when it's out? End of story.

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skrebbel
Pardon the middlebrow dismissal, but why is this remarkable? I mean,

 _Didn't we all?_

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dbg31415
Seems like this has been said before...

<https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/288199968932630528>

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k-mcgrady
Seems to be a problem with the site - it's just redirecting me to the home
page.

------
youngerdryas
I think the mistake is in thinking a corporation can act like an individual.
An individual can disregard most contractual agreements with impunity, a
corporation has to navigate a myriad of byzantine international contract law
because they have real assets that could be at risk. No conspiracy needed.

