HBO Executives Bury Their Heads in the Sand

[citykitteh]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...-options.shtml

Much like the North, Game of Thrones cannot be held?it's too big and too wild. Matthew Inman warned HBO that they should make their content more accessible or risk driving people to piracy, but that isn't really HBO's style.

Now jilocasin points us to the news that Game of Thrones is well on track to be the most torrented show of 2012, and nobody can deny that HBO's foolish subscriber-only distribution is a primary reason for that. Approximately 25-million times have people decided to pay the iron price for the show, and as the comments on Reddit attest, it's often because the gold price wasn't even an option. Others pay for the show but still pirate for the sake of occasional convenience:

Sometimes I just want to fire up an episode and watch it on my laptop immediately and with mobility as I'm wandering around the house, and not worry about streaming/quality issues or finding a disk, setting up the DVD player etc. I am truly lazy.

Meanwhile, Game of Thrones continues to have great ratings. And the torrent piracy count doesn't include streams, which are also hugely popular, so it only represents a fraction of the pirate world. Why not create new ways to legitimize some of those viewers, especially considering so many of them have said they want to be legitimized?

I still contend that HBO-style shows owe a lot to piracy for their cultural dominance, because, if they were actually as exclusive as HBO wants to pretend they are, they would have had a much harder time gathering fans. But HBO co-president Eric Kessler thinks cord-cutting is a fad, so like most characters in the show, he's fighting silly battles while ignoring what's really going on.

A fad? You've got to be kidding me! It would cost me over $130 a month to get cable in my condo that would let me get HBO added on for another $15 a month. That's more than my car payment!

I would gladly pay HBO $15 a month to get HBOGo and all their series, but they refuse! I don't understand why they complain about piracy but refuse to take my money when I want to give it to them.

citykitteh Reviewed by citykitteh on 11th May 2012. HBO Executives Bury Their Heads in the Sand http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120510/10505618869/game-thrones-track-to-be-most-pirated-show-2012-pirates-still-asking-hbo-legitimate-options.shtml A fad? You've got to be kidding me! It would cost me over $130 a month to get cable in my condo that would let me get HBO added on for another $15 a month. That's more than my car payment! I would gladly pay HBO $15 a month to get HBOGo and all their series, but they refuse! I don't understand why they complain about piracy but refuse to Rating: 5

[ShareShiz]

I am truly lazy

damn right. laziness FTW.

if industry doesnt want to change ill just keep on downloading.

... even though i havent seen Game of Thrones.. still sounds like an interesting show.

[imagepad]

Simple Solution. Offer them to be streamed with ads on your own websites. And boom profit.

[M0neyMan]

+1 ^^ problem solved.