Subscribers Pirate Game of Thrones Even Though They Already Paid For It

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http://torrentfreak.com/subscribers-pirate-game-of-thrones-even-though-they-already-paid-for-it-130925/

Comments from News Corp CEO Robert Thomson on the issue of Internet piracy show that unauthorized downloading is a complex beast. Speaking at a Goldman Sachs investment conference yesterday, Thompson revealed that 20% of his Foxtel subscribers that had already paid for Game of Thrones still chose to pirate the show instead. With a legal option just a TV screen away, why would fans chose to break the law instead?

But again it was Game of Thrones generating the most interesting debate. News Corp owns 50% of pay television company Foxtel, the outfit with the rights to show Game of Thrones in Australia. At last count during August the company had around 2.5 million subscribers, but despite the show being legally available to them, the News Corp CEO said that 20% of Foxtel customers still chose to watch the show illegally.

“People are just in the habit of illegal downloads,” Thomson said. “Australians have very bad habits – piracy happens to be one of them.”

Of course, Thomson does have a point. Habits can be very hard things to break, especially ones that have proven so useful over the years. Australians have long complained of being treated as second class citizens when it comes to media availability, so BitTorrent networks have proven extremely popular, as borne out by prominent Aussie placings in TV show downloading charts.

Some moves have been made to get content to Australia quickly. In March, Foxtel announced that it would make available season 3 of Game of Thrones within two hours of its U.S. premiere, but by May things were going backwards again. Foxtel said it would stop offering the show quickly due to a deal it signed with HBO in the United States.

Then in July, Foxtel gave customers more reasons to pirate when it locked down its Foxtel Go “watch anywhere” service, banning users of jailbroken iPhones in addition to Android users not using “selected” Samsung devices.

During yesterday’s conference Thomson said that consumers of unauthorized TV shows should be made better aware of the “inherent value of content and obeying the law” but the fact that 20% of his customers chose to pirate something they already paid for should send a very strong message indeed. For whatever reason, free BitTorrent is better than a premium subscription service. That has to be fixed.