6 ms·

I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

36 points by kevinjohn 14y ago

claudius 14y ago
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 14y ago
  How else can he support the creators of the show?
  - johneth 14y ago
    Buying the DVD / Blu-ray (albeit almost an entire year after the season finished)
  - claudius 14y ago
    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.
deleted 14y ago
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Jleagle 14y ago
Link doesnt work - http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2013/04/pirated-game-of-thrones-season-premiere/ http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2013/04/pirated-game-of-throne...
philbarr 14y ago
You need a : in your link there fella.
mikecane 14y ago
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 14y ago
  Fansubs of Danish programming? Now I've heard that as well!
  - mikecane 14y ago
    Forbrydelsen was a worldwide phenomenon. Surprised you never heard of it. AMC in the US re-did it (badly) as The Killing.
    - Svip 14y ago
      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!
  - dagw 14y ago
    Why the surprise? Many danish movies and TV programs have seen pretty huge international success.
    - Svip 14y ago
      I do apologise, I was trying sarcasm. Danish programmes are usually pretty hard to come by online. Things have changed, obviously, but I still miss some of our older programming, which are still difficult to obtain.
- mikecane 14y ago
  And I get downvoted by people who don't want to admit to an addiction? Rule one of addiction: Denial.
Nursie 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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"
Swizec 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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".
djhworld 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
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.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    EDIT: I don't know why parent deleted his post, but the message was that HBO doesn't run commercials. (Which is true, although it does run promotions for upcoming HBO programs in between programs.) Right, which also explains both why a HBO subscription costs so much and why they air so many reruns. However, not in all locales can one order HBO without also having a cable subscription.
    - imgabe 14y ago
      I deleted after reading the article and realizing that it was talking about HBO in Europe, which apparently does run ads during the shows.
      - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
        Thanks for explaining. In The Netherlands HBO costs Euro 15 ($19) a month, it doesn’t run ads, and the fee includes HBO On-Demand and HBO GO. I don't know about other European countries, but if HBO runs ads there, surely the service will be cheaper too? </naïveté>
- calinet6 14y ago
  I wonder how much people would pay for advertising-free television?
calinet6 14y ago
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.
- rplnt 14y ago
  > 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. I won't be available for everyone and for a fair price. So piracy will still exist.
  - grapjas 14y ago
    But not because of technical reasons. See: Steam.
    - rplnt 14y ago
      Mostly because of copyright holders. Even with steam you can't buy many games thanks to publishers having exclusive deals with local distributors. It's even worse with tv/movies. Then there are different laws around the globe, but I guess that just takes some effort to solve.
citricsquid 14y ago
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Goo [1] http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/world-of-goo http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/world-of-goo [2] http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/15/world-of-goo-piracy-rate-82/ http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/15/world-of-goo-pira...
- chongli 14y ago
  I don't know about you, but for me $20 is a lot of money for such a simple game as World of Goo.
- claudius 14y ago
  > For me a consequence of media piracy is knowing I did not pay for something I have If you don’t engage in media piracy, you often end up paying for something you don’t have – be it because the DRM servers got shut down or because you moved from company X to company Y without being able to export your music collection or because you have to sit through N minutes of advertising/FBI warnings to watch 2N minutes of a movie.
- marknutter 14y ago
  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.
jmduke 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
- laumars 14y ago
  You do realise that Sky offers a number of services that allow viewers to skip those adds entirely: fast forwarding in a a few different modes (live buffers or previously recorded shows like any conventional DVR) as well as advertless shows on Anytime? Barring the odd show that demands real-time viewing (eg sports matches) most people I know deliberately watch their shows 15/20 minutes later from the Sky+ DVR just fast forward adverts. However even without such features, many people just channel hop or walk out of the room to make a cup of tea / go to the toilet. Then to top all that off, most people have become desensitised to adverts on TV; we avoid making purchasing decisions based upon then and even learn to block adverts out entirely. The practical upshot of all this is adverts on TV have now become about as effective a marketing tool as ads on the internet.
dbg31415 14y ago
Seems like this has been said before... https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/288199968932630528 https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/288199968932630528
youngerdryas 14y ago
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.
rplnt 14y ago
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).
imgabe 14y ago
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 14y ago
  "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 14y ago
    "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.
  - imgabe 14y ago
    I'm not trying to say that I'm entitled to steal it. But I can and there is a small chance of any consequence, so, yeah, I'm going to.
skrebbel 14y ago
Pardon the middlebrow dismissal, but why is this remarkable? I mean, Didn't we all?
deleted 14y ago
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notmarkus 14y ago
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?
gavinlynch 14y ago
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.
k-mcgrady 14y ago
Seems to be a problem with the site - it's just redirecting me to the home page.
smacktoward 14y ago
"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?
- illuminate 14y ago
  "This is the most pathetic justification for piracy I've ever heard." Convenience is a value inherent to any product.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  As far as I'm concerned once he's already paid for it he doesn't need any justification whatsoever.
- claudius 14y ago
  > 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.

36 points by kevinjohn 14y ago

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 14y ago
How else can he support the creators of the show?
- johneth 14y ago
  Buying the DVD / Blu-ray (albeit almost an entire year after the season finished)
- claudius 14y ago
  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.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Jleagle 14y ago

Link doesnt work - http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2013/04/pirated-game-of-thrones-season-premiere/ http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2013/04/pirated-game-of-throne...

philbarr 14y ago

You need a : in your link there fella.

mikecane 14y ago

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 14y ago
Fansubs of Danish programming? Now I've heard that as well!
- mikecane 14y ago
  Forbrydelsen was a worldwide phenomenon. Surprised you never heard of it. AMC in the US re-did it (badly) as The Killing.
  - Svip 14y ago
    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!
- dagw 14y ago
  Why the surprise? Many danish movies and TV programs have seen pretty huge international success.
  - Svip 14y ago
    I do apologise, I was trying sarcasm. Danish programmes are usually pretty hard to come by online. Things have changed, obviously, but I still miss some of our older programming, which are still difficult to obtain.
mikecane 14y ago
And I get downvoted by people who don't want to admit to an addiction? Rule one of addiction: Denial.

Nursie 14y ago

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 14y ago
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"

Swizec 14y ago

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 14y ago
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".

djhworld 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago

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.

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- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  EDIT: I don't know why parent deleted his post, but the message was that HBO doesn't run commercials. (Which is true, although it does run promotions for upcoming HBO programs in between programs.) Right, which also explains both why a HBO subscription costs so much and why they air so many reruns. However, not in all locales can one order HBO without also having a cable subscription.
  - imgabe 14y ago
    I deleted after reading the article and realizing that it was talking about HBO in Europe, which apparently does run ads during the shows.
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      Thanks for explaining. In The Netherlands HBO costs Euro 15 ($19) a month, it doesn’t run ads, and the fee includes HBO On-Demand and HBO GO. I don't know about other European countries, but if HBO runs ads there, surely the service will be cheaper too? </naïveté>
calinet6 14y ago
I wonder how much people would pay for advertising-free television?

calinet6 14y ago

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.

rplnt 14y ago
> 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. I won't be available for everyone and for a fair price. So piracy will still exist.
- grapjas 14y ago
  But not because of technical reasons. See: Steam.
  - rplnt 14y ago
    Mostly because of copyright holders. Even with steam you can't buy many games thanks to publishers having exclusive deals with local distributors. It's even worse with tv/movies. Then there are different laws around the globe, but I guess that just takes some effort to solve.

citricsquid 14y ago

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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Goo [1] http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/world-of-goo http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/world-of-goo [2] http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/15/world-of-goo-piracy-rate-82/ http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/15/world-of-goo-pira...

chongli 14y ago
I don't know about you, but for me $20 is a lot of money for such a simple game as World of Goo.
claudius 14y ago
> For me a consequence of media piracy is knowing I did not pay for something I have If you don’t engage in media piracy, you often end up paying for something you don’t have – be it because the DRM servers got shut down or because you moved from company X to company Y without being able to export your music collection or because you have to sit through N minutes of advertising/FBI warnings to watch 2N minutes of a movie.
marknutter 14y ago
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.

jmduke 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
laumars 14y ago
You do realise that Sky offers a number of services that allow viewers to skip those adds entirely: fast forwarding in a a few different modes (live buffers or previously recorded shows like any conventional DVR) as well as advertless shows on Anytime? Barring the odd show that demands real-time viewing (eg sports matches) most people I know deliberately watch their shows 15/20 minutes later from the Sky+ DVR just fast forward adverts. However even without such features, many people just channel hop or walk out of the room to make a cup of tea / go to the toilet. Then to top all that off, most people have become desensitised to adverts on TV; we avoid making purchasing decisions based upon then and even learn to block adverts out entirely. The practical upshot of all this is adverts on TV have now become about as effective a marketing tool as ads on the internet.

dbg31415 14y ago

Seems like this has been said before... https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/288199968932630528 https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/288199968932630528

youngerdryas 14y ago

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.

rplnt 14y ago

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).

imgabe 14y ago

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 14y ago
"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 14y ago
  "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.
- imgabe 14y ago
  I'm not trying to say that I'm entitled to steal it. But I can and there is a small chance of any consequence, so, yeah, I'm going to.

skrebbel 14y ago

Pardon the middlebrow dismissal, but why is this remarkable? I mean, Didn't we all?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

notmarkus 14y ago

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?

gavinlynch 14y ago

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.

k-mcgrady 14y ago

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

smacktoward 14y ago

"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?

illuminate 14y ago
"This is the most pathetic justification for piracy I've ever heard." Convenience is a value inherent to any product.
Dylan16807 14y ago
As far as I'm concerned once he's already paid for it he doesn't need any justification whatsoever.
claudius 14y ago
> 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.