★★★★★ 0/5

Games of Thrones piracy is “better than an Emmy.”

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes makes a statement that will have Pay TV execs ducking for cover.

4
Leave a comment

2013-04-03_1001I’m not sure how the US Ambassador to Australia will feel about this but Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has responded positively to Game of Thrones being the world’s most downloaded TV show.

In response to an analyst question during the company’s earnings call he regarded theft of intellectual property as a compliment.

“I have to admit it, I think you’re right.” The much-discussed fantasy series is HBO’s most popular, and “if you go to people who are watching it without subs, it’s a tremendous word-of-mouth thing,” the exec told investors.

“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,” he said. “That’s better than an Emmy.”

Expect gags at the Emmys on this one next month. Expect piracy for GoT to go up.

In April US Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich used UN World Book and Copyright Day to ask Australian fans to stop illegally downloading Game of Thrones.

Source: AdWeek

4 Responses

  3. @dshan
    You should replace Geoffrey and be crowned King. Best comment of the year.

    (And I just want to see Geoffrey die already. Such a little psychopath).

  4. It’s amazing how counter-productive the networks are over shows like this though.

    Even though GoT has been available here in Australia via both Foxtel and iTunes since the first series it was still the most pirated show in Australia.

    So what do Foxtel do about that? They lock up the rights to S4 and beyond so it will in future only be available on their service, they remove the only other legal means of obtaining it in this country (aside from the months later DVD releases). Do they seriously think this sort of d**k move will turn iTunes customers into Foxtel subscribers? They tried the same trick with Damages and it didn’t work, what makes them think it’ll work this time?

    All this will do is turn many iTunes users into pirates and increase the illegal downloading problem! The rest will simply wait for the series to finish its run on Foxtel, wait the required period until…

Leave a Reply