US Ambassador: Stop downloading Game of Thrones!
US Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich has asked Australian fans to stop illegally downloading Game of Thrones.
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US Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich used UN World Book and Copyright Day earlier this week to make a plea on behalf of US creatives.
He asked Australian fans to stop illegally downloading Game of Thrones.
On Facebook he wrote:
“One episode was illegally downloaded about 4,280,000 times through public BitTorrent trackers in 2012, which is about equal to the number of that episode’s broadcast viewers. In other words, about half of that episode’s viewers stole the program from HBO. As the Ambassador here in Australia, it was especially troubling to find out that Australian fans were some of the worst offenders with among the highest piracy rates of Game of Thrones in the world. While some people here used to claim that they used pirate sites only because of a delay in getting new episodes here, the show is now available from legitimate sources within hours of its broadcast in the United States.
“A show like Game of Thrones takes a lot of work and talent by many artists to create. These artists can do this work only if we ensure that they are rewarded for their labors. Production companies are no different. Entire industries exist to locate artists, provide them a forum for their works, arrange contracts, record, promote, and sell their works, and free artists from doing other things – like waiting tables and parking cars in Hollywood — by paying them for their efforts.
“If the 4 million people who watched Game of Thrones legally had been illegal downloaders – the show would be off the air and there would never have been a Season 3.”
NB: A reminder that while piracy can be discussed on TV Tonight, endorsement of illegal piracy is a breach of Comments Policy.
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55 Responses
I wonder if it was on FTA would the piracy of this show be so high? I think it was a missed opportunity for FTA to show this.
@victor
That’s actually quite complicated. There’s arguments both ways, but I swing on Disney’s side.
It would kind of seem like an injustice if Disney’s copyright on Mickey Mouse expired and then the world’s largest entertainment company loses it’s most iconic brand. Then anyone can release Mickey Mouse films, open up Mickey Mouse theme parks. You have to admit that’d not be a good thing.
So much time and money has been put into these properties, the idea that it all becomes worthless, or that others can suddenly benefit from all of that, and even use those properties to damage you. That’s wrong.
It’s a changed reality. I understand the arguments about great pieces of literature becoming public domain is good. That in the long term everything tied up is bad However if there is a direct link to the material and it is being utilized, then I think copyright holders should be able to renew it.
@Annette – illegal downloading is still theft, whether you can afford pay tv or not. No excuse! If you can’t afford or are unwilling to pay then you go without. Simple.
The United States government has a lot to answer for when it comes to copyright law. Its famous “micky mouse laws” extended copyright by 20 years to death of the creator plus 70 years in order to protect Disney’s copyright and entrench Hollywood copyrights. Copyright was actually created long before the creation of corporations to provide income both for the individual creators and their successors often impoverished and poorly rewarded for their creations and at a time when males lived to an average age of 40 plus. Given current statistics an American male creator who lives to 80 can have his copyright protected for 150 years and the biggest beneficiaries are the Hollywood studios. Mr Bleich can you honestly defend such a position? It is time for you to step down from the high moral ground.
Jengo, here, here! The best ad I’ve seen for anti-piracy is news footage showing MegaUpload’s owner, Kim Dotcom, & his massive mansion in New Zealand when the cops raided it. All the money he made from Mega went to that shark alone & not the hard working content creators whose files were being ‘shared’ on his website. Outrageous! Yet, like you, I’m always happy to hear when the record labels & studios get some little fish too.
Annette, Foxtel don’t air any ads within any of its HBO programming. Only before & after.
The very least these thieves could do is just admit they are one by stop blaming everyone else for their illegal behaviour & take some personal responsibility.
Let’s be honest; what we are talking about is distribution rights. It is the production companies that have to negotiate with distributors for $$. Illegal downloads is an argument that distributors can try and use, but it also creates an awareness of a product for those same distributors. Foxtel have not promoted GoT to the extent that we are seeing now, until season 3. Why? It’s not from ratings generated from the first two seasons…it is in fact articles like this creating “buzz”. Production companies are not stupid. They have already factored in wages and profits when selling the rights. When distributors stop demanding content (maybe from download saturation?), then production companies will explore more innovative distribution methods than just iTunes. Content on demand is the future…they just need to work out how to monetise it best.
@jengo not everyone in australia can afford the luxury of Pay tv. and most dont see it as good value. even if you have the basic package you need to upgrade to the premium package in order to view quality programming like HBO programmes. .the costs for that are too high to justify for the majority of Australians.. foxtel is being greedy when they want two streams of income customers paying for their service and advertisers paying to advertise on their channels.if your prepared to pay for it good for you but most australians can not afford the luxury of pay tv or do not see the value in having pay tv.
@Stan – far too many hard done by in this country who seem to think they are entitled to everything, without having to pay. Fed up with all the whinging about shows being on Foxtel and not FTA. My response to those is tough!
I like many others do pay for Foxtel and also purchase from iTunes. I do not steal, unlike many that appear to do so on this forum!
Would like to see a government grow a pair and start prosecuting these freeloading thieves!
Not that many people know this, but all Free-To-Air networks have been blocked from HBO programming via a new deal with Foxtel signed this year. Not that it matters, because whenever FTAs air AMC, FX or Showtime stuff here, you people complain about the delay.
If we’re just talking about Game Of Thrones (which is very convenient for some people’s arguments), then the legal options are to sign up to Foxtel/Foxtel Go, or pay just $3.49 for HD quality (available on the same day) iTunes version, or wait a very short time for the DVDs & Blu-rays to come out.
But that’s too much to ask, isn’t? God forbid anyone should make money from the ‘hard done by’ Australian “fan.”
Firstly thepeople that download illegally would never buy the show on DVD, so no money is lost . Secondly the show needs to be available to the mass market in this country it is not. With all the digital free to air channels it amazes me ot one has picked up game of thrones.So people will download illegally. We have but one pay tv provider and one that has most of its channels stuffed with advertising . We as a consumer are not prepared to pay to watch tv and pay tv with advertising. This is not america ambassador where you have twenty or thirty pay tv providers where consumers are paying fifty dollars a month for the premium service. its australia we are use to free TV and expect our tv to be free..pay tv will never be a mass market product in this country. Even the thirty percent that have pay tv most would only have the basic package which does not include HBO programmes. Which coats around $150.00 per month
Pertinax, ‘file sharing’ is no less damaging than stealing physical products (like DVDs). The cost that goes into producing DVDs is just one component to the overall cost of producing entertainment (think of all the other people and companies that need to be paid for working on music, TV or movies). Like everything else, theft is factored into the overall cost, & that’s why the rest of us (honest people) are left to pick up the tab for you lot. CDs & cinema tickets don’t seem to have fallen in price for years, & DVDs/Blu-rays fall in price quicker, but the initial RRPrice is the same as it was decades ago. What do you think is going on there? Clearly the distributers have given up competing with BitTorrent & are keeping the price the same in order to recoup what they are losing in massive numbers.
Oh, iTunes was bound to come our way even without people stealing on a massive scale. Beside, Apple make 70% profits on everything there, so it’s hardly the industry’s saving grace.
I hate that I pay over $100 per month for Foxtel.
But I can’t bear to watch 7, 9 or 10 at all – you know the reasons (too many ads, intrusive watermarks, late starts, crap reality shows, etc). The ABC and SBS are only marginally better.
I would pay for just the Showtime channel and a couple of other channels if I could, but that’s not an available option.
However when Monday 2.30pm comes along, when I sit down to watch last weeks GoT, ready for the next one at 3.30pm it all seems worth it!
I am in heaven!
Stealing digital content is still theft. But it less damaging that stealing really property.
If you steal a DVD the producer, distributor and retailer have sunk costs in the manufacture, transport and storage of the DVD itself, as well as the content and marketing. They lose the potential to sell that DVD to someone else.
The marginal cost of a digital copy is zero. They only lose to the extent that the thieves would have bought a copy (minus the gain that word of mouth and publicity the stolen copies generate).
It is also worth remembering that companies are allowed to operate and granted intellectual property rights because they provide goods and services to the population. There must be some balance. Trying and locking up large sections of the population to protect gouging by multinational corporations may not necessary be the best use of taxpayer money.
With audio pirated MP3 files eventually lead to iTunes, Pandora and other online distribution networks that are more efficient, delivered lower prices to consumers and ample profits to the industry.
If they want to really stop illegal downloading then find some way to make it free for viewers and make money. That’s easy to use for everyone in the world. Not just different regions.
By the way if I’m lucky on bushfire day the internet works. Often it’s intermittent or dead for hours. The only technology that’s more reliably dead every day in the town I live in is the mobile phone signal. Plus smoke blocks both technologies (even more) on bushfire day. Yet the siren system that actually worked every week for over thirty years in my lifetime in my region. Is killed off. Because the other two technologies are meant to work due to the power of planners ‘magical’ thinking. It’s my long winded way of saying I wish I had good enough internet to work all the time. Though I’m not interested in downloading TV shows. TV ads and film trailers maybe if freely available.
I find it disgusting that out of 34 comments, only Jengo, Thaddeus & BarrieT have stood up for the industry you all need for your entertainment.
So many lies & general untruths in the comments here, I won’t be able to address them all. Stealing other people’s artistic content does not send most off to buy the DVDs. Why are DVD/Blu-ray sales plummeting & the retailers that sell/rent them dropping like flies? Where do people get this “awareness/buzz” argument from? There’s no proof to back it – it’s just wishful thinking. The issue is much bigger than Foxtel & Game of Thrones!! Stop focusing on that because it’s a problem across *all* forms of electronic entertainment. Bleich was speaking for the UN World Book and Copyright Day & we read about it via *TV* Tonight! Isn’t he allowed to have a wide range of views? Illegal downloading mostly does translate into lost sales because those people don’t go through the proper channels. If the iTunes price is too “high,” then how low should they go – free? Just because legit sales of programs like GoT might be high, doesn’t give you lot the excuse to freeload on the rest of us who pay for it, or watch through advertiser-supported means. Program start times isn’t an excuse either with the market awash with PVRs & catch-up websites from the networks themselves. This is not about the “free market economy,” it’s the black market!
We really live in a self-entitled age, filled with people making excuses for their illegal & amoral behaviour.
Please keep comments succinct.
At least Ambassador Bleich had the class to ask nicely.
Hey Mr Ambassador, I have a proposition for you. You go back to the US of A and convince Adobe, Apple, Google et al to stop ripping off the Oz public and the Oz Tax Office, and people might stop pirating stuff. Deal?? Yeah, too hard that huh.
Oh, I know television programs are different to computer software/games… sort of, isn’t it? But you get my point.
This is a free market economy. It is also a Globalised one at that so that means people will want to watch a show asap. Not everyone has Foxtel or can afford it. It would be good to see this on ABC or SBS but they dont have the money simple as that. The commerical networks aint gonna touch it unless its popular enough to get significant ratings. I know sounds redicioulr considering 7Mate and ONE are filled with crap in primtime as far as i am concerned but hey what are you gonna do?
@BarrieT What makes me laugh is when people complain that Foxtel is too expensive, yet spend $40 to $50 a week or more on alcohol, cigarettes or gambling.
Scenario 1 – Networks invest in quality series. Lower than expected viewers are recorded. Program shunted and eventually dropped. Loss-Loss.
Scenario 2 – Networks invest in crap. Higher than expected viewers are recorded. Program is kept and repeated to the point of wanting to kill oneself. Win-Loss
Scenario 3 – Networks ignore quality “cult” programs due to low expected viewers. These are the programs that a few hundred thousand viewers are passionate about but do not constitute a large enough audience to air in prime time. Audience acquires through other means. Loss-Win(or loss depending on point of view)
Scenario 4 – PayTV (30% of Australian Households) gets wind of niche/cult quality programs into 2nd or 3rd season. Fast-track new episodes, but have failed to capatilise on hype by showing previous seasons to catch new viewers up. New viewers find other sources, but also find new episodes so what is the point of subscription? Same as those viewers already familiar with the series and have already viewed the first seasons via other means. Loss-Loss
Possible Scenario 5 – Release it world-wide simultaneously for free. Embed a small number of ads sold to advertisers by region. Yes, people may be able to edit and re-release, but why bother for a handful of ads in a better “program to ad” ratio than normal FTA of which most are accustomed?
By the way, 4.2 million out of the world’s 2.4 billion internet users ain’t too bad (0.17%)!
Australian viewers are treated well by FTA. For nothing you get 17 channels and local TV, US and UK FTA shows, some US and UK cables shows, even some Canadian shows and SBS shows the best European shows.
In the US or Europe you would have to have cable to such a quantity and range of shows from around the world.
Game of Thrones would be a bit more popular than HBO’s other shows but still wouldn’t get enough viewers on FTA to be worth them buying it even if they could. Channel 9 used to buy the Sopranos and The Wire and show them at midnight on Monday (after it failed at 9:30pm), just because they could.
SBS’s nonexclusive showing of HBOs shows are only watched by 100k people. So Foxtel doing a deal for exclusive repeat rights doesn’t matter much.
People have a choice of Foxtel, iTunes or DVD.
Those who don’t want to pay steal it and there is no point in trying to justifying that. It is what it is.
Hasn’t the US Ambassador got anything better to do?
If a certain amount of people illegally download the show, and if it was not available to download in this way, it does not translate into that total number of people acquiring it by legal means. Many would not bother with it at all, and would not have heard of it = less people buying the box sets later on.
Besides iTunes, the only way to see this show in Australia is through the movie package on foxtel, which not all people can afford. If foxtel had any brains they would let you buy channels singularly instead of in packages.
Foxtel have already paid the US to air this show. If the number of people who subscribed to this channel increased, I don’t think foxtell would pay the US more, wouldn’t it just mean more money for Foxtel.
If Free to Air had any brains they would acquire this show. Show it the same time every week, and not cut out bits for TV, but that would never ever happen in Australia, as there is way too much sex and violence for our prudish networks.
Australian FTA TV is an absolute joke, people are turning away from it in droves. There is not one show that interests me on FTA.
@Craig
Cutting off the supply again is a very stupid thing to do. If you look at the Australian iTunes store Game of Thrones is currently the top TV show for both episodes (4 out of the top 5) and seasons (3 out of the top 5)
There is a significant audience of people in Australia who are willing to pay 2 or 3 dollars to legally buy an episode as long as it isn’t delayed too much. HBO can either make money from that audience or not – the ball is in their court.
@max, no, Time-Warner (HBO’s parent) recognises the relatively low reach of Foxtel and Showcase in Australia. Hence Game of Thrones is available on iTunes (now in HD too) the next day after airing. That doesn’t happen *anywhere else in the world*. On demand video for HBO content (outside HBO Go) is usually not available for months and months.
So you shouldn’t pay Foxtel $80/month to watch Game of Thrones. You should buy the $30 iTunes season pass.