Game of Thrones Premiere Piracy: A Million Downloads in Half A Day

[shintakie10]

No surprise there, maybe you shouldn't lock your product behind a 15$ a month paywall HBO? I'm surprised they even manage to make money at such unreasonable prices.

captcha: Have fun! exactly what I want to say to all those pirates, it's a great show, sadly too expensive for most of us

The 15 bucks a month paywall isn't the issue, its needin to be subscribed to HBO the channel thats the main issue for people. At that point its more like 115 dollars a month just to watch a single tv show. That's ridiculous.

If I could just get HBO for 10 bucks a month I so would. There's a lot of quality programmin on there, but I'm not spendin 40-50 extra dollars a month just for that programmin.

 

[ExtraDebit]

We don't have HBO in my country, downloading it from torrents is the ONLY option we have right now until the dvd is release which I'm planning to buy as a collection, so what you suggest? wait? FUCK NO! I'm gonna pirate the shit outta it.

 

[Deathfish15]

GoT is undoubtedly an excellent TV show.

But, to me, it's not worth the $15/mo HBO subscription fee.

So I'll just wait until it's released on Netflix.

In the meantime, Matt Lees can keep me up-to-date.

And why not? You're actually supporting the show's current and future airings by subscribing to HBO, rather than watching it contracted on Netflix (for whoever small percentage HBO collects from said contract). The average ticket for a movie is around $8 and is roughly 2 hours long max; where as the $15 a month covers 4 one-hour episodes of Game of Thrones. .....more value for your money.

 

[Ne1butme]

why did my brother get an email from his ISP based on a DCMA complaint from HBO for downloading GOT?

Because he didn't encrypt his download traffic obviously.

Also, the ISP probably just did it on their own.

Well, it wasn't encrypted, but the complaint definitely came from HBO or a company that is employed by HBO. They provided the ISP with the IP address and the ISP did a lookup and mailed him the complaint.

 

[GAunderrated]

GoT is undoubtedly an excellent TV show.

But, to me, it's not worth the $15/mo HBO subscription fee.

So I'll just wait until it's released on Netflix.

In the meantime, Matt Lees can keep me up-to-date.

And why not? You're actually supporting the show's current and future airings by subscribing to HBO, rather than watching it contracted on Netflix (for whoever small percentage HBO collects from said contract). The average ticket for a movie is around $8 and is roughly 2 hours long max; where as the $15 a month covers 4 one-hour episodes of Game of Thrones. .....more value for your money.

Or alternatively, HBO could sell the episodes at 5 dollars an episode and they would make 20 dollars a month and I wouldn't have to use their dinosaur subscription model.

However, HBO is telling us that they have enough money not to worry about it so I won't. I support the show by buying the seasons when released but I'm not going to support a scam like their subscription model. It is more money in their pocket and I feel like I am getting better value even if paying more because I don't have to keep cancelling and resubscribing like some of my friends still do.

 

[RandV80]

Doesn't surprise me to hear it. HBO needs to refine the way they make their content available online. When I tried to find a legal way to watch GoT online last year, I was mortified to find that what I expected to be a simple "give HBO money-stream show" process actually required me to subscribe to HBO's channels in addition to paying the fee, and since I don't have any television channels at all, that would also require me to go out and get cable or satellite... and it all snowballed from there.

Frankly, the current business model HBO is using leaves the thousands of people who no longer use television in the digital age with no legal means of watching the show, outside of buying the blu-rays annually. (which I do)

The reported problem is that they believe the benefits of providing a direct and simple digital pay per episode/show method would not outweigh the negatives you will get from the disruption to their standard business model. This is just one show don't forget, while it may not be that way to many HBO is more than just Game of Thrones... though that's certainly all they are to me!

Best they can do really is let the piracy slide and count on DVD/Bluray sales to pick up the slack. Looking at the legit TV ratings and the DVD/Bluray sales they're doing pretty well here. Actually you know what would be cute? Rather than sending out 'Pay us $2000 or we'll sue you into the ground' letters, they send downloaders letters that say instead "pre-order the season # bluray set now or we will sue you into the ground (or not)". Can't think they're really bothered by people who download episodes on release then buy it later.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

I live in the UK and I tried finding ways of getting it legitimately but short of changing from cable to satellite which i have no say in what do they expect me to do? Let people sub up to HBO Go ffs it can't be that hard to do. Or get Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch to fight a deathmatch maybe that might sort it out?

 

[DirgeNovak]

I live in the UK and I tried finding ways of getting it legitimately but short of changing from cable to satellite which i have no say in what do they expect me to do? Let people sub up to HBO Go ffs it can't be that hard to do. Or get Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch to fight a deathmatch maybe that might sort it out?

Pretty much that. HBO exists in Canada, but to subscribe to it I would have to pay for digital cable, and there's no fucking way in hell I'm paying $80 a month (plus the exorbitant fee for HBO itself) for TV. I'll watch it now using the only option I have left, and I'll buy the DVD set when they deign to release it a year from now to support the creators.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

i usually keep the newest season on the sky+ until the box set is released. Shame though, i'm willing to part with my cash for HBO's product, why do they wait nearly a year to release it. madness

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

If HBO didn't require a subscription to not only their awful service but also utilizing a cable company, it might be lower. Why not just have them online and allow us to pay for them that way? I just can't bring myself to subscribe to a cable company for any reason. TV is too shitty.

 

[FalloutJack]

Oh, I'm sure the Lannisters can foot the bill.


Seriously, though, why are they surprised?

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Hilarious how companies like HBO create such hype around their show that millions of people are pumped to watch it the moment it comes out, and then they can't even provide access for everyone when it does.

Thank goodness that never happens in gaming...

 

[gyroscopeboy]

GoT is undoubtedly an excellent TV show.

But, to me, it's not worth the $15/mo HBO subscription fee.

So I'll just wait until it's released on Netflix.

In the meantime, Matt Lees can keep me up-to-date.

Well now that HBO and Foxtel (Australia's biggest pay tv network) have an exclusive deal which forbids iTunes from selling this seasons episodes until season end, the minimum buy in to watch is about $70/mo in Foxtel subscriptions.

No doubt GoT piracy in Australia will skyrocket even higher.

 

[00slash00]

GoT is undoubtedly an excellent TV show.

But, to me, it's not worth the $15/mo HBO subscription fee.

So I'll just wait until it's released on Netflix.

In the meantime, Matt Lees can keep me up-to-date.

You're in for a long wait, HBO shows don't go to Netflix. Better off just waiting for a sale on Amazon

 

[j0frenzy]

As someone that uses HBOGo (and thankfully doesn't pay for it) HBO gets no sympathy from me. They charge a ridiculous amount of money for terrible service and have the gall give you ads.

 

[Strazdas]

Pirates download as HBO still fails to get on with 21st century and relaize that network subscription does not work as a payment model.
let us buy seperate shows downloadable from your website.
And yes, i want downloadable, because there no chance in hell they can pay for hosting of 1080p stream that isnt compressed to hell (like youtube is).

Really great opportunity to troll pirates by releasing an ep that is missing the last 5 minutes, there. I like creative anti-piracy measures.

Likely it would get nuked[footnote]nuking is a term used in pirates community to mark broken file, such as a badly encoded movie, not-woking crack, ect[/footnote] within half an hour and removed from the sites in couple minutes after that. then a full version would show up.