Walking Dead Producer: Piracy's Pushing Content Creators To 'The Precipice'

[Karloff]

Walking Dead Producer: Piracy's Pushing Content Creators To 'The Precipice'

Better than an Emmy? No way, says executive producer Gale Ann Hurd.

Gale Ann Hurd's been in the entertainment business for over 20 years; she produced a little thing called Terminator back in 1984, Aliens in 1986, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgement Day ... better than an Emmy [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005036/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1]?

"I think that's really dangerous thinking," she responds. "We are poised on the precipice ... because of the prevalence of piracy. The content creators won't get a revenue stream, to the point that they won't be able to create." It's not quite end times over at The Walking Dead - Hurd suspects there's a season or two left in Kirkman's material - but Hurd strongly feels piracy threatens the industry as a whole.

Google and the advertising industry could be more effective at dissuading piracy, Hurd feels. "Search engines should be able to filter out pirated websites," she says, pointing out that in searching for House of Cards she was unable to find Netflix as an option in the first 50 hits of a Google search.

"When you do go on these websites, they look legitimate," she continues. "They have advertising from well-known brands ... How would a consumer know the difference between a legitimate site and an illegitimate site?"

It's worth bearing in mind that the problem isn't just a piracy issue; the business model as a whole is burdened with ridiculous policies that lock whole regions [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126957-Australians-Pirate-Breaking-Bad-More-Than-Any-Other-Country] into a system in which piracy or paying through the nose are the only two options on the table. That, and long gone are the days when Australia, for example, was happy to wait a few days, or weeks, or longer, for its content. Something needs to change, Hurd's right about that; but is it Google's search protocols, or something else?

Source: Guardian [http://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2014/jun/19/walking-dead-producer-google-must-do-more-combat-piracy-video]


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[DrunkOnEstus]

I'm not asking for links, but what are these legitimate (actually work and don't have viruses/forward you to surveys) websites that look like Netflix or some other legitimate video service, but are t3h warez or whatever and not a torrent site? I'm getting kind of an impression that she doesn't quite understand how these things work.

And on the note of "dangerous thinking", no Google should not be filtering out websites. Even in those instances where ROM sites are blocked because of the DMCA or whatever, Google doesn't like it and lets you know that it happened. Some, I repeat some of those pirated seasons of the Walking Dead would never have been bought, which is bad. That does not mean that censorship of the search results for "The Walking Dead" into Google should be looked into or expected to fix anything.

Make your releases worldwide, don't price gouge the fuck out of a nation for having the audacity to live there, and don't put shows behind a paywall that is literally inaccessible to people who want to give you money, and enjoy your earnings for a job well done if the content is good. People will still pirate it, but you will only drive yourself mad if you consider every seeder a person who downloaded instead of paying. A big chunk of those people were never going to pay you even if there were no torrents.

 

[Falterfire]

Gabe Newell was absolutely correct when he said that Piracy was a service problem. After getting used to Steam I pretty much entirely stopped pirating games. Now that I have Spotify I've stopped pirating music.

I don't really watch TV because short attention span, but if I did my first stop would be Netflix or Amazon. If I can buy a show for a reasonable price (The current Amazon price [http://www.amazon.com/A-HD/dp/B00F880BWG/] is $42 for Season 4 in hi def, which I consider reasonable) then I will. (And it's worth noting Amazon sells regular definition for $27 for the season, which is less than $2 an episode)

There will always be pirates, but a lot of them are high school and college students who may not have the disposable income anyways. If you make it easy and cheap enough to acquire your show legitimately, there will be plenty of people happy to pay.

 

[WittyPun]

Piracy is a difficult issue, but it's more a symptom than a disease. When you take away the people pirating to try things before they buy(and why not, given we live in an age of trailers and marketing that are often completely false characterisations of the actual product), the people pirating because the product isn't available legitimately where they live yet(and may never be), the people pirating because of anti-consumer practices like region locking and overcharging some regions or providing them with lesser versions of the content/product, and the people pirating because they're short of cash at that moment in time but who end up supporting the creators of what they consume at a later time(for eg, pirating a TV show while it's broadcast, but buying the blu ray boxed set later on), who are you left with?

Well, people who wouldn't pay money for the product unless piracy was extremely inconvenient and even then may just not consume it at all rather than pay, and as yet no corporation(and lets be clear, that's what we're talking about here in the main, multi-national corporations not Joe Indie with his handheld camera) has come up with a way to do that which doesn't also negatively affect legitimate consumers who bought the product. Indeed in many cases piracy is used as a justification by corporations to deliberately and maliciously attempt to erode consumer rights. You can argue the ethics regarding this last group, but the practical reality is they wouldn't be a source of revenue for creators or distributors anyway, so while the idea of people enjoying their work for free may stick in the craw of some content creators, they're not particularly relevant.

Lastly, I hope we're actually allowed to discuss the subject of the article, given the somewhat overzealous moderation that tends to happen 'round here when the topic comes up. If we're not, might I suggest that in future you just disallow comments on any article that touches on piracy? Probably less hassle all around.

 

[Covarr]

When you stick to a delivery method that not everybody wants to use, that not everybody even has available to them, of course you'll have a piracy issue. Take note of Breaking Bad, which put a partial season up on Netflix, and then put the rest of that season up almost as soon as it finished airing. People were watching that legitimately, and AMC was able to get licensing fees from Netflix out of it. Maybe not as much money as they'd have hoped for, but it's a damn sight better for the studio than piracy is.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Aggieknight]

I feel for the challenges Hurd faces, but "piracy" is not the problem, but a symptom.

Give people reasonable access to the content they want and "piracy" will plummet. Gouge them, make the jump through outrageous hoops or wait significant periods of time to see it locally, and studio/networks are at fault.

The TV channel/cable paradigm has been broken. People want access to their content when they want it, on whatever device they'd like it. Attempting to keep the model alive will result in people going around the model to find other means to ingest it (like piracy).

 

[Plunkies]

"...pointing out that in searching for House of Cards she was unable to find Netflix as an option in the first 50 hits of a Google search."

Well, she's either a liar or an imbecile. Wikipedia, IMDB, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon. Those are the first 5 I get. There's also a giant google window on the right that tells you the network is Netflix, the awards its won, where you can purchase it and for how much. Scrolling through the first 50 results I couldn't find a single site from which to pirate the show.

 

[seditary]

"...pointing out that in searching for House of Cards she was unable to find Netflix as an option in the first 50 hits of a Google search."

Well, she's either a liar or an imbecile. Wikipedia, IMDB, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon. Those are the first 5 I get. There's also a giant google window on the right that tells you the network is Netflix, the awards its won, where you can purchase it and for how much. Scrolling through the first 50 results I couldn't find a single site from which to pirate the show.

I get the Netflix site for the show in the top 10 (first page) and I live in a country that doesn't even get Netflix.

 

[CriticalMiss]

"...pointing out that in searching for House of Cards she was unable to find Netflix as an option in the first 50 hits of a Google search."

Well, she's either a liar or an imbecile. Wikipedia, IMDB, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon. Those are the first 5 I get. There's also a giant google window on the right that tells you the network is Netflix, the awards its won, where you can purchase it and for how much. Scrolling through the first 50 results I couldn't find a single site from which to pirate the show.

I was going to post something similar to this. I googled it and a link to the show on Netflix was the very first thing that came up, it's a paid advert but it is still the first result. Maybe she doesn't include advertising as advertising?

Spoiler: Googling House of Cards results for the curious

https://www.google.co.uk/search?site=&source=hp&q=house+of+cards&oq=house+of+cards&gs_l=hp.3...7041.8925.0.9190.15.9.0.0.0.0.459.729.2-1j0j1.2.0....0...1c.1.47.hp..14.1.457.0.AqFeZeQULpQ

 

[whycantijustdeletemyaccount]

.

 

[Makabriel]

I feel for the challenges Hurd faces, but "piracy" is not the problem, but a symptom.

Give people reasonable access to the content they want and "piracy" will plummet. Gouge them, make the jump through outrageous hoops or wait significant periods of time to see it locally, and studio/networks are at fault.

The TV channel/cable paradigm has been broken. People want access to their content when they want it, on whatever device they'd like it. Attempting to keep the model alive will result in people going around the model to find other means to ingest it (like piracy).

The idea of trying to give people what they want is a pleasant one, but you will never beat "free" when it comes to getting a hold of something you want. It's just not going to happen. The only way is to make the product BETTER than the free option.

 

[hermes]

Not really buying it... I never understood the logic behind condemning piracy for things people already paid for. If I pay my subscription to cable, the only reason for me to pirate a series is to be able to see a show at reasonable times instead of just waiting for the reruns. Yet for those people, I am a thief for using something akin to a VCR or a TiVo.

I wouldn't mind to use a system like netflix (in fact, I often do) for new TV series, if it wasn't for the incredible amount of segregation and equivalent services and the constant region lock.

Learn from Steam: the best way to fight piracy is to make it easier for people to get legit... Every time I get late to watch a chapter, having paid for cable, and get reminded that I am a second class citizen based on where I live; is a new ocassion for me to risk a torrent site and feel less and less guilty of what "threatens the industry as a whole"

 

[Aggieknight]

The idea of trying to give people what they want is a pleasant one, but you will never beat "free" when it comes to getting a hold of something you want. It's just not going to happen. The only way is to make the product BETTER than the free option.

Not to be argumentative, but I respectfully disagree.

IMHO, Apple proved with iTunes that if you give people the product they want at a reasonable price and acceptable flexibility, they will pay rather than taking the risks that come with "free".

The people I know that pirate due so not because they don't have the money, but because of barriers that the content providers put in the way. I know people with HBO that still pirate GoT so that they can watch it on airplanes, for example. Of course, my sample size may be too small

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Here is a list of features "piracy" has that have yet to be supported by movie/tv publishers

1. absolute selection (every movie and tv show ever made)
2. available worldwide the same day as first broadcast (usually minutes after the broadcast concluded)
3. drm-free local copy so you can transcode a version for any device you own
4. free

There needs to be the equivalent of Steam for movies and TV. You buy once and you "own" forever. You download your library at will from their store, and you store as much locally as you care to. You get a steam "video" app for your phone or tablet that lets you download versions of the things you purchased optimized for your devices. The DRM chains hang as lightly as possible with an "offline" mode that only requires phoning home once a month.

Free isn't even the major feature of none torrents, none of the "legit" services provide features 1-3 at any price.

 

[DTWolfwood]

hah its great that she thinks people use Google to search for pirated material. Its a good start but once you find that one "site" you'll never use google again. Not that i know what that is of course...

 

[hermes]

The idea of trying to give people what they want is a pleasant one, but you will never beat "free" when it comes to getting a hold of something you want. It's just not going to happen. The only way is to make the product BETTER than the free option.

Not to be argumentative, but I respectfully disagree.

IMHO, Apple proved with iTunes that if you give people the product they want at a reasonable price and acceptable flexibility, they will pay rather than taking the risks that come with "free".

The people I know that pirate due so not because they don't have the money, but because of barriers that the content providers put in the way. I know people with HBO that still pirate GoT so that they can watch it on airplanes, for example. Of course, my sample size may be too small

It is not. Everyone I know has HBO and still pirate GoT because the legitimate service is too restrictive in format and reproduction.

Then there is the problem of content segregation. Netflix, HBOGo, Amazon, Hulu, Ultraviolet, Paramount Channel, Disney Anywhere... the list of services with similar features but different content (and different policies) goes on and on. In the end, even under optimal circunstances (living in US, with decent broadband and credit) there is no way to get access to everything unless you are subscribed to dozens of services. If simplicity and ease of access is the way to fight piracy, movie companies are pretty much enticing pirates with their policies.

 

[Count_A'ight]

If I want to watch say The Last Starfighter again to relive the awesomeness of the film, I'll check to see if it available on Netflix to stream. If it is not available(only available on DVD), I'll hit a few sites that do have it available for streaming. I like Netflix and HBOgo as both sites stream well quickly with excellent quality, yet if their libraries are lacking, I know where to go to get my fix.

 

[ExtraDebit]

Maybe they can crowdfund tv series in the future so they don't have to worry about lost revenue since they already got paid before they even produce.

In a perfect world, there will be no piracy, shows and games would be affordable and available worldwide at the sametime at the same price. But in the real world, the economics of a lot of these shows and games are managed by greedy bastards and governed by politics.
Some of these shows are ban in some countries, Some and made available days or weeks after it's release in another country, Yet some are priced almost doubled in some countries.

Humans are still alive today because we don't always follow the rules of nature, we were herbivores once but when we have no fruits we eat meat. When we were cold we put on clothes. When we didn't like caves we built houses. Therefore, when you market your products poorly we will pirate your shit.