Anti-Piracy Boss: TV Fans Are Unreasonable For Wanting Content Quicker
by enigmax
Speaking at a University of Melbourne seminar, Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft chief Neil Gane conceded that Australians are no longer content to tail behind the rest of the world when it comes to viewing TV shows like Game of Thrones. However, despite this clear ‘buying’ signal, Gane said that AFACT members consider this impatience to view content as “unreasonable”. Piracy will continue, he said, no matter what providers do.
During May, TorrentFreak gathered statistics on who is downloading the massive hit series Game of Thrones.
We found that more people are downloading the show compared to last year and that the number of weekly worldwide downloads is roughly the same as the number of viewers HBO has for the show in the U.S.
Since the Internet is worldwide by nature, just like their US counterparts Australians were exposed to plenty of buzz about the show and were well aware of when the new series would premiere stateside.
But unfortunately and for reasons best know to the entertainment industry, Aussies have to wait an additional week to view episodes of the show. Little surprise then that they turned to BitTorrent in droves, eventually topping the list with 10.1% of all Game of Thrones downloads.
However, according to the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, the impatience being shown by fans of the show is “unreasonable.”
Speaking at a University of Melbourne seminar last evening, AFACT boss Neil Gane conceded that TV and movie fans might be driven to piracy by delays, but when the same question was framed slightly differently, it proved problematic.
Linking to TorrentFreak’s statistics, ITNews reports that they asked Gane if piracy rates were lower on shows that were fast-tracked to Australia. He was unable to answer.
AFACT’s members have spent huge sums of money suing local ISP iiNet, yet appear to have a problem answering a fundamental question such as this. The answer, of course, (particularly given Gane’s earlier concession over delays) is that they do recognize that bringing shows more quickly to market in areas such as Australia will reduce piracy, but internal politics restrict them from doing so.
But instead, Gane told the seminar that members of AFACT believe that fans of Game of Thrones are behaving unreasonably when they don’t want to wait an additional week to see the show.
Predictably, Gane said that reductions in piracy need to be forced through tougher legislation, because he has research that says that no matter what the studios do, people will still pirate.
That research, which is yet to be published, comes from the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation, the outfit that pops up whenever the entertainment industry wants to prove a point, but doesn’t want anyone to know how that point was reached.
When the research is published it will apparently show that 86% of ‘persistent’ downloaders and 74% of ‘casual’ downloaders turn to piracy due to cost. As highlighted in our earlier article, the exclusive nature of Game of Thrones will indeed be a factor in pushing people towards piracy.
An article published in March titled “Help! I’m Being Forced To Pirate Game Of Thrones Against My Will!” illustrates one such scenario perfectly, with a fan wanting to buy the show but being forced to jump through hoops and pay for stuff he doesn’t want just to gain access.
As we’ve said dozens of times before, making content easily accessible is about many things, not just release dates. Once that’s achieved that same content has to be made available at a fair price too, a concept that rarely matches the policies of ‘exclusive’ content providers.
Whenever you hear the copywrong gang speak up, it's always 'but...but...pirates' is the answer. Doesn't matter how many hoops and jumps in put in place to prevent sales or how many problems the industry has with satisfying it's market because it takes no pains to met them.
Yet time and again they have their faces rubbed in the inconvenient fact that willing buyers of their products can not buy. This business with timed releases and with world regional codes doesn't work and has long ago been broken by the file sharers. There are 9 regional codes in the world and a purchased dvd will only work in that region but won't work outside it because the equipment to play it back will only accept that region it was bought in. The drivers/hardware in your cd/dvd burner/player will play any of the regions and it can be set and changed. But after 5 changes the hardware will refuse to accept further changes and sometimes software will quit functioning on it at 4 changes. Once you hit this barrier the only way around not replacing the burner/player is having to reflash the eprom to reset the counter. Of course there are software solutions to these problems out for free. AnyDVD is a prime example of such, which can change the regional code to the unclaimed region of zero.
Notice that the hype isn't limited to the country that the show is playing in. Nope that should go out world wide, creating a demand they aren't going to meet sometimes for as long as a couple of years. Nor is there any telling that the show will actually show up there in Australia after all that time as the show may be cancelled in the US and deemed not worthy to carry through after the hype has hit Australia.
Then there are the problems with if you want to pay for it and live outside the US, no one wants your money stateside unless it is in dollars with a US address to send it to.
This isn't about money, they don't care about meeting the market demand as can be readily seen. It's about control of the product. Use it how we disagree with and you've broken the law is the basic line.
The reality is that the copywrong gang is it's own worse enemy and is forced to move into the modern world, kicking and screaming all the way. Look at the VCR as a prime example of that. Case after case in court trying to bottle up the technology, trying to make it illegal, trying to make the use of it illegal, only to find the courts did not see it that way. It went on to be the largest new source of income ever for those same copywrong gangs.
Here again we see that same mentality functioning on new technology that allows any and all to obtain the material without the artificial barriers put in place.
...TV Fans Are Unreasonable For Wanting Content Quicker
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