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.”
While FOXTEL gets the show a few hours after the US and I Tunes gives the show at a reasonable price of $30 for the whole season it seems that isn’t enough to stop those who download .
source tv tonight
