I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere • Hacker News Board

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#41

Post by crusso » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:19 PM UTC

rplnt wrote: post #28

calinet6 wrote: post #12

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…

> 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.

fair price

Where "fair price" is an amount that's so low as to be effectively free or at most substantially lower than it costs content creators to produce it.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#42

Post by notmarkus » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:20 PM UTC

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?

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#43

Post by pc86 » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:20 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #33

citricsquid wrote: post #13

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" arg…

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 auth…

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.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#44

Post by Ntrails » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

calinet6 wrote: post #12

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…

I torrented all the DvD's I own a few of months ago, because they are too much hassle to watch compared to a simple .avi file in my neatly ordered media folders. There is no place in my life for physical media anymore, it just doesn't fit.

The solution, for me, is to integrate movies and series into Steam. When it airs, it becomes downloadable through Steam. I probably can start watching about 5 minutes after everyone else, only instead of adverts I pay ~$1-2 for the episode.

If I want to keep it on my hard drive, I can. If I want to dump it, I know I can re download at any time. It offers the exact freedoms and ease I get from torrents, but without needing to be a pirate.

The key thing, though, is the delay. I won't wait 2 months after the series ended to be able to buy it, because I don't want to and I don't have to. Compete on speed and ease of use, and price becomes less of an issue.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#45

Post by toddrew » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #35

calinet6 wrote: post #12

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…

“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.

I pirated it as well. I could have watched it on tv, but I opted for my laptop. The content creators were paid long before I made that decision. They would not have received any more money had I turned on my tv or not.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#46

Post by citricsquid » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #33

citricsquid wrote: post #13

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" arg…

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 auth…

The blog post presented a supposed solution: make it easy for people to acquire something legally and they will acquire it legally. However World of Goo is a perfect example that this is just not the case, even if the product is literally perfect piracy will remain rampant. Why would a company bother investing huge amounts of money into creating a "perfect" tv/movie distribution platform if it's going to make barely any difference to the amount of piracy? I wasn't suggesting DRM is good (I don't like DRM) I was suggesting that piracy is not a result of a poor product it's a result of the consumers desire to get stuff for free.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#47

Post by crusso » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #37

citricsquid wrote: post #13

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" arg…

Who cares about % of piracy? The only value that matters is the absolute number of sales, not what the non-customers did or didn't do with that game. DRM hurts sales of many products. If one more extra customer pays for your movie because the DRM-free service is better, then it outweighs a billion of freeloaders.

DRM hurts sales of many products

For the few who consider DRM to be a moral issue or to those who use DRM as an excuse to pirate harder or distribute - but in reality, unobtrusive levels of DRM like those used for DVDs prevent the masses from making near free copies of movies to distribute to friends and relatives.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#48

Post by gavinlynch » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

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.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#49

Post by noptic » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:24 PM UTC

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #35

calinet6 wrote: post #12

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…

“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.

Look over there! The Point! Oooooo you missed it.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#50

Post by Samuel_Michon » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 1:24 PM UTC

josteink wrote: post #40

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

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.

Definitely, and I agree.

Going back to OP’s post: just because I pay for cable (which I hardly watch) doesn’t give me a pass to download freely. Netflix is a good alternative, but it’s unfortunately not available where I live. My only legal option to get the TV shows I want to watch is iTunes (which is fine, but it doesn’t have everything, and sometimes you have to wait.)