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Game of Thrones was nearly "destroyed" by pirates illegally streaming HBO content (www.forevergeek.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Terramaris@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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At first this article reads like your typical anti-piracy screed. It rants about how 10x more people watched GoT illegally (confusing them with lost sales) and ends with how downloading movies can get your credit card stolen.

The middle of the article however, destroys the author's case.

Time Warner (owning company of HBO) CEO Alan Bewkes stated in 2013 how becoming the most illegally streamed show in history was “better than an Emmy” and that torrenting ultimately led to more paid subscriptions.

“We’ve been dealing with this for 20, 30 years—people sharing subs, running wires down the backs of apartment buildings. Our experience is that it leads to more paying subs. I think you’re right that Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world and that’s better than an Emmy.”

The CEO of Time Warner, who knows more about the finances of his own show than ForeverGeek writer Tom Llewellyn, championed piracy and said that it brought them more subscribers rather than nearly destroying the show as the article claims.

Needless to say, Tom forwent a rebuttal in favor of writing how you can get malware from downloading it...

Anti-Piracy Propaganda: 0 Truth: 1

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[-] Screwthehole@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

He means one needed cable. It wasn't available purely as a stream

[-] sab@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Oh wow, it hadn't even occurred to me such a subscription wouldn't include the ability to watch on demand. That's so last century.

[+] iAmTheTot@kbin.social -28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So he was able to stream it legally, he just wasn't happy with the requirements for doing so.

Edited to add, I think I've misunderstood the original poster. I thought they were saying they could stream it if they had cable. Now I'm not sure that's what they meant.

For those saying I was being pedantic, I don't think it's pedantic to refute that someone said they can't do a thing when they can. But again, I think I misunderstood.

[-] burndown@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 year ago

Cable isn't streaming.... 🤦‍♂️

[-] ledditor@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

The Reddit Pedantic-Olympics are starting up again…

I don’t know why internet commenters think it’s such a zing to “correct” someone when it’s quite obvious what they mean.

[-] HeavenAndHell@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

This isn't being pedantic, it's obvious they meant they couldn't stream it over the internet and had to watch it on scheduled cable. It's not even semantics. People just need to fully read a sentence.

[-] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

It was not obvious to me at first because some on demand services require a cable TV account to access. That's what I thought they initially meant.

[-] pectoralis@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

It is not. But GoT was not available to stream in Canada. Without any streaming options, piracy was the only way to watch... Unless of course I wanted cable and HBOs pricey package.

[-] Goathound@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago

To add to what burndown said.

Before streaming services were the de facto place to watch movies and TV at home, cable companies would charge a monthly fee to provide live cable TV. TV shows aired weekly and if you miss an episode on Cable, unless you happened to set it to record, you can't watch that episode until the network decides to air it again, hours or days later, what was known as a "rerun."

Cable is a live broadcast sent from the cable provider, (think youtube livestreams that play family guy 24/7) streaming is an on-demand platform for content. So in Canada, if the only place to watch Game of Thrones legally is cable, that limits your viewing time, what episode you watch, and the order in which you watch the show/movies, greatly impacting the viewing experience.

So cable and streaming are separate, cable is more expensive and less enjoyable than streaming, but at the end of the day they're two different methods of watching TV.

[-] wsweg@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Not sure if it’s the same in Canada, but the US has an insane amount of people who pay for cable still, even in areas with high speed internet. I honestly don’t understand how people like it, especially with how expensive it is. It’s even worse if they have satellite and it cuts out during storms.

[-] DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

I'll just add that the last part about streaming being cheaper isn't so true as when the show was airing. Cable companies (some at least) have seen the writing on the wall and have dropped prices and with the abhorrent amount of exclusivity crap going on with streaming services and ever increasing fees on everything, a lot of people have found it's cheaper for them to go back to cable. Keeping in mind a lot of cable services include a streaming branch of their service now so the days of horrible inconvenience are dying out. It's quite fun to see for those of us who hate the practices going on in streaming lately.