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
I don’t think HBO was even available in my country when GoT started. Towards the end it might’ve been. But you still had to also have the TV service from a specific ISP, not JUST the Internet service. Now there are more options, but it’s still always bundled with some other shit you don’t need.
THIS. I remember, when I started watching GoT, it was a shitshow to actually get the content in ANY way, not even speaking about getting access legally. This changed with time, but the show often was exclusive to Sky, which is one of the most garbage paid tv services I know of. I can buy it, but I REALLY don’t want to support Sky for their bad service. There really should be no exclusivity to those things.