
Anti-Piracy Boss: TV Fans Are Unreasonable For Wanting Content Quicker - anons2011
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-boss-tv-fans-are-unreasonable-for-wanting-content-quicker-120601/
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Turing_Machine
A lot of companies have made fortunes by giving "unreasonable" customers what
they want quickly and at an affordable price. Their slow, overpriced
competitors...not so much.

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goostavos
I read a pretty interesting article, in Delta's Sky mag of all places, about
GrooveShark and similar services. Companies that are successfully flourishing
in spite of piracy seem to have a common thread among them; they view piracy
as the competition.

They ask the 'right' questions such as "what is it that sucks about piracy",
and "how do we make our service fill that hole?" Similarly, the question Valve
asked (and answered brilliantly) was "how do we make our service more
convenient than piracy?"

I found it to be an interesting contrast to these old media behemoths that
view piracy as something wholly different than user experience/convenience.
The customers _want_ fast access to content. Piracy is currently the only way
to achieve that with a lot of the media owned by these aging corporations.

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WiseWeasel
Damn unreasonable humans! Why can't they just contort their behavior around my
business model?

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goostavos
Along a very similar vein, in an interview with Forbes, HBO basically
expressed the view that watching things on the internet is a temporary
phenomenon. It shows how out of touch a lot of these people are. Wanting
content fast is "unreasonable"?

Pretty strange.

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chaud
I'm not sure that was the case: <http://dcurt.is/hbo-forbes-journalism>

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ef4
It's impossible to get the content to Australia so quickly, which is why the
fans are already getting the content to Australia so quickly. Got it.

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pavel_lishin
> Piracy will continue, he said, no matter what providers do.

Of course it will. But this is like arguing that crime will never hit 0%, so
why bother trying?

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emehrkay
Remember when we had to wait almost a year for a film to be available on VHS?
For some strange reason, I clearly remember the first time I was wowed at how
fast a movie made it to dvd. It was some movie with Lucy Lue that came out in
like October and was on dvd by December.

Found it <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308208/>

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billpg
Next week, car manufacturer says his customers are unreasonable for wanting
his cars so much.

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k-mcgrady
"Aussies have to wait an additional week to view episodes of the show. Little
surprise then that they turned to BitTorrent in droves..."

I think this says a lot about how the internet has changed society. Waiting
one week is not a big deal. There used to big release gaps between countries
when movies were released in the cinema. Sure it sucked but life went on. I
know that many people don't think piracy constitutes theft (although it sounds
like these people would have paid, so it is a lost sale), but having to wait
one week should not be justification for pirating content.

A lot of money is put into making a show like Game Of Thrones. The £1.89
iTunes charges per episode would not be enough to cover the budget and I
believe that's why this staggered roll out happens (deals with TV companies
are more lucrative). If the episodes were priced higher (say £4.99) but
released immediately I don't think very many people would pay.

The internet seems to be fostering an attitude of "We want it now, and we want
it free or very cheap".

I think it's going to be very hard to ever find that sweet spot where people
are happy with what the content company can viably offer, and they won't
pirate.

Edit: I think this article explains my first point well.
[http://ihnatko.com/2012/02/20/heavy-hangs-the-bandwidth-
that...](http://ihnatko.com/2012/02/20/heavy-hangs-the-bandwidth-that-
torrents-the-crown/)

~~~
kapowaz
> Waiting one week is not a big deal.

It is when the show in question is Game of Thrones, a story which revolves
greatly around plot twists which could easily be spoiled if you're forced to
wait longer than others to watch it. I already find I have to carefully
moderate my online activity on a Monday before I can watch Game of Thrones in
the UK, and we only have to wait _one day_!

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betterth
To be fair, I'm two episodes behind on Game of Thrones, so two weeks back.
I've seen only one spoiler for the most recent episode, but if I hadn't
already read Books 1 - 3, it wouldn't have been a spoiler. I only knew what I
was looking at because I've read what would happen.

But you're right, it is very difficult.

I think it comes down to: You want to be a part of the culture. Go online and
talk when everyone else is excited. Get excited with the fans at the same. It
fosters a sense of community that is rewarding, something many watchers love
to participate in.

It sucks when you get content a week or a month or six months later, and 90%
of the fanbase is WAY past you, not interested in talking, not ranting and
raving any more.

For many people, good TV and culture is social, regardless of whether or not
the old industries can see it happening in front of their eyes.

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kapowaz
> I think it comes down to: You want to be a part of the culture.

This is the crux of it, and why HBO et al are just completely behind the
times. _How_ people consume entertainment has changed drastically and
pretending otherwise simply won't cut it any more. The good news is that all
these people with outdated concepts will eventually retire or be overtaken by
newer businesses that ‘get it’, but the transition is going to suck (in a
first-world-problem kind of way).

