Piracy: Australians lead the world for illegal downloads of Game of Thrones

Fast-tracking a show is not the same as making a show more available.

Dear Foxtel,

if you don’t give people a legitimate path to purchase then they will find their own solution.

lots of love,

The Internet
Riding on the horse that’s already bolted
20-20 Hindsight

The horse has bolted, there is no going back. Look at the choice – $100 gets you a Foxtel subscription with no reduction in the amount of ads you’re forced to watch (the savvy of course record and skip the ads). Whereas you can get the show for free online with no ads. Why would anyone bother with the Foxtel? TV networks and movie studios have ripped off consumers for decades, they are now getting their just desserts.

Dear HBO,

Cut out the middle man. Why should people be forced into lenghty expensive contracts giving them only content that does not interest them. If viewers know for certain GOT episodes are available for immediate access straight from its source, people would be less inclined to download illegally.

It’s $35 (until very recently, $50) a month, with in-your-face ads, for single TV show. It’s little wonder people go the download-now-and-buy-the-bluray-later route.

I bought the last 2 seasons on iTunes, and was happy to do so. I looked in to Foxtel because I wanted to be law abiding for my favourite shows and the footy – GoT, Mad Men and the AFL – but I couldn’t justify the expense when both shows were available on iTunes, and almost all of the games I want to watch are now on FTA. I am not going to start a subscription just for GoT, Foxtel are dreaming. To get the basic subscription + sports + premium drama adds up to $100 a month, and the contracts are for minimum 12 months. . . but wait, we’ll give you $15 a month off for GoT season. Yeah, still too much, not going to happen.

“Foxtel’s efforts to make Game of Thrones as widely available as possible”

“it secured an exclusive deal with HBO this year, preventing the show from being made available on Quickflix or iTunes in Australia until after the series has finished”

Somehow these two things don’t go together. At least when the previous seasons were available on iTunes our household bought a season pass and downloaded the episodes when they were more than a day late (which was almost every week).

showcase airs all its drama ad free.

This astounds me. Basically, the argument from most pirates is “I think the price is too high and I can steal it as an alternative, so it’s ok”.

I think the waiting list for a new Ferrari is too long and the price is definitely too high. I might go an pinch one tonight. After all, it is clearly Ferrari’s fault that they are not cheaper or easier to obtain. It is not just that I am an anonymous thief that thinks it is ok because I am very unlikely to be caught.

Steve Allen’s audience figures for GoT is completely off the mark. How in the world did he get those numbers…

Arrogance from studios are to blame…that and just sheer stupidity in the face of problem that has a solution but nobody wants to have that discussion..so people scream “Piracy”…its a problem!! But what is being done to combat the problem beyond whingeing. There’s some interesting experiments going on with independent content creators on Torrent sites, with creators uploading their content onto to Torrent sites and asking “Pirates” hey..like my films pay me what you think at my paypal….and guess what..its working???

“Here problem is there is no casual way to watch it. According to foxtel’s site you have to go onto a subscription plan. That pricing model right there is why there is piracy.

A simple $2-4 pay-per-play would have dropped the piracy levels I suspect. Definitely not eliminated it.

I get why they don’t offer standalone pricing models as a way to get you into subscriptions. They are asking a lot above the price point of what is in demand.

The pirates have already made an assessment of how much an episode is worth, clearly it less than the price and burden of a subscription but I’d wager some would pay per episode”. -Taken from an FB post on your page

Of course it is about availability! Many people shun ITunes. Many others shun Foxtel due to the high expense, Rupert Murdoch’s politics, the ads and that foxtel streaming thing is unconvincing as yet.

Until the show is available via digital download at a reasonable price, we can’t expect things to change. Simply look at what STEAM did to PC games for a lesson in what consumers (mostly) want.

@KGB Apples and orange. Nice try all the same.

It seems like there are customer-friendly, modern solutions to this:

1) Casual packages.
2) Customised packages

If Foxtel give people cheaper access to single shows, like on iTunes, people will be less likely to pirate, feel happier about the product and then, when they’re in the system, be more likely to upgrade. Ideally to customised packages.

I would most certainly pay for GOT exclusively, and then seriously consider upgrading to include sports I like, and other TV series/movies as they come out. Then I have a customised, value-for-money Foxtel package I’d enjoy 100%.

I refuse to pay over $100 a month to subscribe for Foxtel, to gain access to only one show I want to watch. Especially when I don’t get to own a copy of the show at the end of the day. And am planning on buying the Bluray at about $60 the following February.

At least when you could buy it on iTunes, I could watch the show as many times as I liked on my Apple devices. Now the only legal, cost effective way for me to watch is to wait until February 2015 and buy theluray, or schlep over to a lucky friend’s house with Foxtel and watch it with about 15 of my others friends who also refuse to give Foxtel money. Sheer arrogance of Foxtel that anyone would pay that kind of money for 10 episodes of a show.

Homelands drop in ratings is a reflection of the show not of piracy.

Willingly paid $4 an ep for season 3 on iTunes until it got shut down.

I went online last night to try and purchase a copy…impossible.

The only solution was to sign my life away to Foxtel and pay for a whole bunch of repetitive programming I will never watch, nor be interested in.

No prizes for guessing what I ended up doing.

Ps. I’m not talking about Foxtel’s already customised packages (by genre). I mean more affordable snack-sized packs (by show). Which is how we consume TV now.

Spot on KGB. What part of ‘stealing’ don’t these people understand? The fact that the price is too high or the availability is too slow is no excuse.

I too am a Foxtel subscriber and I agree it’s too expensive but I reluctantly pay because it delivers things I want that I can’t get elsewhere.

Nate, I definitely agree. I own the first 3 seasons on Blu-Ray and also own around 15 other shows on DVD/Blu-Ray. But I downloaded last night’s episode. Why? Because I cannot afford Foxtel, and don’t want to enter into a long-term subscription for one show.
They say that the Foxtel fees have been reduced for the GoT season, but what they don’t mention is the $150 to have installation in the first place on top of the monthly fees. The Blu-Ray GoT Season costs around $50-$60 on release, but I’m not going to wait until February 2015 to see this years season, especially when I have to avoid the internet until I have caught up. This also goes for Quikfilx & iTunes – The web is dark and full of spoilers.
We need to have it made more accessible to those not willing to sign up for a full subscription. Even if Foxtel created it’s own streaming site, charging per episode, or even charging a certain amount for the whole season, I would definitely buy into that. I don’t have a problem paying to watch the show, in fact I want to support the entertainment industry. Not to mention if Foxtel created the streaming, they would get much more accurate numbers of people watching their shows.

GoT S4 IS available RIGHT NOW, legally, to non-Foxtel subscribers. You can watch it using Foxtel Play, which is a no-contract viewing option – you pay for what you want, for as long as you want, and then you cancel when you want to cancel.

Stop whinging and READ for god’s sake. IT IS READILY AVAILABLE via a legitimate path.

Everyone involved in making GoT – the producers, directors, actors, set and customer designers – deserves to be paid, so they can make more excellent tv.

Any justification for stealing (but I want it now and I don’t want to join Foxtel for a million years!!) is actually indignant hot air that really translates to: GIVE IT TO ME, I want it, and I’m not going to pay for it.

Why is that an excuse? Are you going to start working for free, because someone doesn’t feel like paying you for what you do?

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

Foxtel need to think about off the shelf. People hate subscriptions, especially when there is little value in them for the subscriber and heaps of ‘value’ for the publisher…

I have a plan how to slash car theft. Make it legal to steal them because they aren’t free or because people don’t want to pay the asking price.

$80 a month to watch 4 episodes? HBO IN THE US IS SO MUCH MORE AFFORDABLE. ( sorry about the caps) let alone the rest of the Murdoch ball breakers
He was an Aussie right?

If thee show be made available by pay-per-play on any Australian site me be purchasing.

Seriously though – subscriptions ‘forced’ onto Foxtel not only include contracts, but waiting for set top boxes which then need be returned – time and effort for one season of one show.
Not to mention and poor billing procedures and a lack of account support “I cant send you the last invoice, you have to ring us and pay via credit card” mean they keep stinging charges long after the contract expires ….

…. aarrrrrrr!

The truth is that Torrent sites are simply displaying the hubs of individual personal computers sharing in-demand content – so until you can find a way to prevent people from sharing content online and/or interuppting peer-to-peer networks (a fundamental facilitator of content sharing and a signficant contributor to overall internet traffic) – then you are unlikely going to teach the new dogs, old tricks.

Australians can do anything if we put our mind to it.

Exclusive deals on Foxtel simply force people to piracy. End of story.

I’m going to be honest here: I downloaded season 1 of GoT illegally, as I did for seasons 2 and 3. At the end of each season I bought the Blu Ray box set because I wanted to support the makers with a purchase for such a freaking cool show. Though it took forever for the S3 blu ray to come out.

At the time of the above, I was a Foxtel subscriber. I had the general and sports packages, but I didn’t see the point in spending even MORE money on top of my $80 a month to watch just the one show. Plus, I also happened to live in a building where Foxtel only had analogue cabling and refused to upgrade it. When I can get 1080p torrents online, why would I pay more for lesser quality?

I usually consider myself quite a fair guy and I’m happy to pay for content, hence buying the box sets, but I will not commit to wasting money which on archaic subscription models in low def at inconvenient times (unless I pay yet more for an IQ box). Nor will most people under 40 who have a good understanding of how the internet works. Foxtel needs to learn a thing or two about content distribution. This season I’ve bought a subscription to Foxtel Play because it’s only taken them 4 years to get something working, even if it’s half-baked. I’m more than happy to pay the $35 a month to watch the show in HD whenever I want. Hell, I’ll probably even still buy the box set. But Foxtel could and should be doing better. It’s not 1990 anymore. You can’t protect a show behind your paywall anymore. The choice is to find the best way to serve the customers who would be interested in your purchasing product, or miss out when they source it elsewhere. In the game of content, you live or get leeched.

Love the predictable dribble out of most people’s mouths.

I pray for the day when the online theft of programs is punished and people complain that they didn’t realise they were stealing. As someone correctly pointed out – you don’t go and steal a better car than you currently have just because it’s priced too high.
Foxtel is a business in a free-market society and as such is there to make money. They’re not there to give things away to the general population for free.

Wow, you pirate stuff online – so cool!

Big ticket drama on FTA or STV is perhaps coming to a close. Kevin Spacey’s comments about wanting to pay a fair price, buy it all at once, and watch 13 hours over 2 days if you want seems to be an unstopable future. FTA networks are getting smarter by scheduling more news, sport and local reality because they understand making people wait til Wednesday 8.30PM for their favourite US drama is a pirate’s paradise.

I always love how Australians get a bollocking for all of the illegal downloads. What about the Americans who are recording and distributing these shows, hours after they air in America.

How about finding a way to deliver content to consumers in a way they wish to receive it, in a timeframe that’s not a significant disadvantage compared with other countries, and at a price that demonstrates value to the consumer.

My partner refuses to steal music, because $1.29 per song (or whatever iTunes charges now) is reasonable on a value scale. He will however download TV shows that have already aired on Free TV, because he can’t justify over $30 for a boxed set to rewatch something he’s already seen for free.

Market your product, pricepoint and delivery to match consumer expectations, instead of whinging about all of the theft.

Foxtel Play would still be a minimum of $50 per month to get access to one show. Like someone else said – just get people in the door with a cheaper subscription fee and up-sell them to higher packages later. People don’t consume like they used to and subscription TV services need to keep up, or they’ll continue to lose their viewers to piracy.

Lori Fleckser’s opinion is that of vested interests (particularly those of Foxtel and studios who are committed to them) trying to maintain their ridiculous profit margins and justify their clunky expensive infrastructure.

As the founders of Popcorn Time said, “Piracy is not a legal issue, it is a service issue”. Technology has such flexible ways to deliver content, yet Foxtel is still forcing people into awkward half-pregnant versions of old-school linear programming technology. They won’t even allow Presto to stream to your TV!

It is no different to a department store saying for years the only way Australians can buy a particular product is from their stores, and only belatedly now can you buy them from their clunky online site after having decried overseas internet retailers for years. And their site still doesn’t have the range or flexibility available from overseas retailers.

Stealing involves the permanent intention to deprive someone of property. IP infringement does not involve deprivation of property; if I were to download GoT, then Foxtel haven’t lost anything. The law recognises this.

IP infringement is a breach of civil law. It is not, as an absolute matter of fact, stealing, and anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant or lying.

Foxtel Play works well for me. Legal, no contract and no ads.
Ad people can claim most of Foxtel back on tax if they’re savvy enough

Your experts are remarkably ill-informed. Steve Allen seems to think that Game of Thrones season 4 is available on DVD in America right now for Australians to import, which of course it isn’t. Worse, Lori Flekser – executive director of the IP *Awareness* Foundation – says season 3 was available on iTunes within one hour of US release, but iTunes doesn’t release episodes until 2am on the day after broadcast, around 12 hours after the US. Therefore they weren’t able to see it until Tuesday evening when everyone at work that day is talking about it.

Plus, Foxtel Play is not the perfect solution. If you can’t watch it on the live stream, the lack of any record facility means you have to wait until midnight for it to be added to Catch-Up. Same Tuesday evening problem again for many paying customers, neutering the Express from the US strategy.

Also, iTunes customers were used to having a copy they could rewatch. They now must pay more and can only rewatch for the next few weeks before the episodes disappear. HBO Go, on the other hand, makes episodes available permanently, like a Spotify for its own programming. And the kicker: no HD on Foxtel Play, after we had beautiful 1080p copies from iTunes last year. Despite what Bruce Meagher said in the SMH today, $35 a month actually *is* a lot of money for such a subpar service. Besides, it goes up to $50 for Showcase once GoT finishes, so fans of other HBO shows will pay even more.

Then again, iTunes had flaws too, which Flekser likely doesn’t consider. While iTunes music is DRM-free, its TV shows aren’t. DRM means the episode can only be played on Apple devices or through a laptop connected to a TV by HDMI. It’s awkward and irritating for the everyday viewer when the means are there for us to watch a downloaded file on our TVs with absolute ease. It’s still a good service, but let’s not pretend any availability solves all problems.

Pirates know all of this, which is part of why they pirate. Sadly, these kinds of factual and perceptual errors are all too common among the anti-piracy lobby in articles like this. When pirates know more about legitimate methods than the advocates of those methods, how can we expect a reasonable, informed debate about this?

Cable TV will go the way of newsprint if they don’t give consumers better options, service , products….Cable TV already in decline in the US.

Agree with Dan2 – it sucks for corporations when consumers take matters into their own hands and refuse to be ripped off anymore but it’s a perfectly rational thing for consumers to do. The music industry has belatedly accepted this and now legal streaming services are booming and piracy is in decline. When will this happen with the TV and movie industry? Netflix in the US: $7 a month, Amazon Prime in the UK 6 quid a month, Presto in Australia (with less range and no option to stream to tv (wtf?)) yours for just $20 a month. Once again Australia bend over and take it. Whole sectors in this country are coming to the realisation that their gravy train is over – retail, TV networks etc – it can’t come soon enough.

Comcast in the US – 100mb/s unlimited internet, unlimited voice, 170 cable channels (inc HBO) – $129.99/mth.

I think I was paying $110/mth just for Foxtel alone until I binned it.

What staggers me is the rationale that ‘corporations are ripping us off’ (either due to cost or not having instantaneous access) therefore it is OK to pirate content but that is not seen as ripping off the content creator (and their various financial backers).

Price is not the true source of people’s complaints here.

The Game of Thrones discount package for Foxtel Play adds up to $1.15 per day.

Even when the discount ends, the price goes up to just $1.60 a day

For that you get unlimited access to the Halycon days of TV drama — and more besides (unlimited Disney movies for example).

The average Mumbrella reader spends, let’s say, $7 a day on coffee. Probably average coffee. When’s the last time you read a blog about the evil coffee producers?

SO, Mumbrella, a serious question: what are people REALLY complaining about here?

The analogies of stealing cars is beyond me? Apples and oranges.

What happened to being patient ? If people keep on downloading illegal content we will be forced to watch endless My Kitchen Rules, The Block, Big Brother, because there will be no one making the good shows because all the illegal downloads have eroded not only the profits but all the money that is required to produce these shows.

But distributors get your act into gear and make the DVD sets available a lot sooner.

Never seen an ep of GoT – dont care. BUT – with all the free trade agreements signed – why dont the content owners just sell it direct to this market? Why bother with Foxtel or such? Just dont understand why they bother with the old fashion clunky distribution model for Oz. The content providers should just sell it direct. They’d get paid and those that could care get their tv-fix.

This article and its headline make no sense – downloading the episode is not illegal, and any IP lawyer will tell you that.

I know that people keep comparing torrenting to stealing cars, “You wouldn’t steal a car” but if people could download a car, I bet you they would. They can’t keep comparing the two.

@Laura: at the rate 3D printing is evolving, I fully expect to be able to download a car in the coming years. And I will!

@Tim Kingston (comment 45).

People want to watch shows now. If their friends / family in the US can watch it, why can’t they?

Content producers need to make hay whilst the sun is shining. Cut out the middle man (Foxtel) and allow users to download directly = a massive reduction in piracy and a rewarded content producer. It is that simple.

What do people not understand? (Or are they the trolls from the ‘old skool’ TV networks…?)

Business is lean guys – no room for fat anymore.

I can watch a downloaded video file on my TV via my Playstation 3 and a wifi network. No other service will allow me to do it without buying a box that only does one thing. It’s that the technology exists and works that is the thing. If I can’t watch it on my set-up I don’t want it. Bit first world, obviously, but that’s the bog simple explanation that talk of theft won’t ever really budge.

Worth noting that HBO have said they don’t care particularly about torrenting and they haven’t seen it adversely impact DVD sales…

Lordy, lordy Dawn.

So your solution is to “cut out the middleman”. What blissful ignorance. Do you think that content producers sit around piling in tens of millions of dollars of their money then hope that all the content pirates suddenly stump-up for downloaded copies?

Do you realise that these so-called middlemen actually stump-up money on order to pay the writers, directors, actors, crews etc. in order that the content can be made?

Do try and come up with a funding model (please … no-one suggest KickStarter … thousands have tried already) the allows for the PRODUCTION of quality content, I totally agree than a back-end trail of nickels and dimes for downloaded copies should be part of the funding … but get a grasp of reality first,

what does ‘merica pay to watch shows like GOT? is it cheaper? easier? quicker?
we lose out and are delayed, and most times wait at the end of a season for a 3 month for ‘fast tracked’ show to be reseasoned… equality for all, hell it appears we are paying for it?

I rarely create responses, but i did a few searching and wound up here Piracy:
Australians lead the world for illegal downloads of Game of Thrones –
mUmBRELLA. And I do have a few questions for you if it’s allright.
Could it be only me or does it look like some of the comments look like they
are coming from brain dead folks? 😛 And, if you are posting
at additional sites, I would like to keep up with anything fresh you have
to post. Could you make a list of the complete urls of your communal
pages like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin
profile?

It’s like George Costanza’s view of prostitution – “Why should I pay for it, when, with a bit effort, I can get it for free ?”

@Is anyone NOT on the bandwagon?

While yes you can go on Foxtel Pay.. err, Play. And while yes the people who made the show deserve to get paid. Do the middle men deserve to take such a chunk of the money? Does any deserve to get paid that much? It is simply coming down to how much money one can ‘steal’ from those who watch the show.

Ifthey made it legitimetly available for a fair price than the amount of piracy would drop. Currently the only legitimite way to view the show is simply to cost effective for us, even using Foxtel play considering you still need to ‘subscribe’ for a month at a time.

@Shannon. Exactly. Old skool greedy businesses want too much fat.

The reality today is that the new skool are lean. I know a senior exec at a billion+ dollar tech company who flies international economy class. Middle managers at most traditional media companies would travel business(.)

Ivory towers are being replaced by open plan offices. Top down is being replaced by bottom up. Senior managers support great staff and the companies fly.

I wish the trolls would address the facts. Why are downloads so high in Australia? What is causing that problem. Get these addressed and bingo: an increase in sales. Bring the price down and the scale will compensate and don’t force people to sign contracts. We want ‘off the shelf’, it is not rocket science?

Understanding why an old skool business would continue to practice old skool greedy practices is rocket science – I don’t get it? Is it compensation for the newspaper revenue losses?

if i remember there is an old basic to business.

Supply and demand.

There is a HUGE demand for oxygen… but youll have difficulty selling me oxygen as i can get it anywhere.

Now i used to think that about water… but bugger me if that hasnt changed.

same (currently) applies for TV/Movies/Music. Howeveer, a lot of people want to see performers live.. theres your demand people, supply it

What about thinking outside of the box, and what if the powers to be consider weekly cinema screenings of each episode?

I can tell you that myself and many other friends I’ve spoken to would happily pay to watch each an every episode at a cinema if it were screened shortly after its first broadcast in the US. Might sound crazy but I really believe this model would be hugely appealing for a good portion of the audience currently opting to download