this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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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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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Bullshit. While it was the most pirated show no doubt, It did drive HBO subscriptions and BluRay sales. The drastic fall off in show quality after season 4 did it in.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Unless the headline was being sarcastic, nowhere in the article does it explain how it was "nearly destroyed". If the article author isn't going to put any effort into writing it, why should anyone put any effort to reading it? Just the typical clickbait garbage.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The article is click bait, I agree. I'm referring to OP's post, though. Not the entire article.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Are we supposed to?

Idk there’s comments here, I was expecting to get all the relevant parts extracted for me (as I do in other posts I come across)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember HBO bragging that it was the most pirated show in the early seasons.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is becoming a second Reddit, my answer would be no.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Complaining about this is a very reddit-esque thing to do.