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Entertainment Wednesday, February 27th 2013 at 12:50 pm

Game of Thrones Director Says Intense Piracy’s Actually Been a Good Thing

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Piracy is something that the television and film industry have to deal with on a regular basis. This is especially true for cable programs that are locked behind subscriptions and those shows that still delay television broadcasts across regions. Shows that do both and aren’t available through traditional streaming channels? Well, those shows are going to hit the hardest by piracy. Game of Thrones, for example, has seen extensive piracy thanks to HBO‘s draconian policies. Director David Petrarca doesn’t seem to think this has been an overall bad thing.

Petrarca’s comments were made during a panel at Perth’s Writers Festival in Australia this past weekend. After the panel moderator noted that Game of Thrones was the most pirated show of 2012, Petrarca gave a rather measured and fair response. Here’s how The Sydney Morning Herald put it:

But Petrarca shrugged and said the illegal downloads did not matter because such shows thrived on “cultural buzz” and capitalised on the social commentary they generated.

“That’s how they survive,” he told the crowd gathered at the University of Western Australia.

That seems almost… too positive. He’s basically saying that the incredible amount of piracy experienced by the show’s produced a net positive. The more folks that download it and speak of it positively, the more people watch it legitimately. It’s the “Pirates As Cultural Heralds” approach that too few folks in Hollywood seem to agree with.

To be clear, Petrarca’s only directed a few episodes of Game of Thrones, “The Ghost of Harrenhal” and “Garden of Bones” specifically according to IMDb, so it’s not like he’s speaking for the entire production or anything. Even so, it’s kind of refreshing to see someone involved not entirely up in arms over something they can’t really do anything about.

UPDATE: As The Mary Sue notes, Petrarca has already gone back on his comments.

(SMH via TorrentFreak)

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  • Jack Bond

    People give free software all the time and it still works out in their favor. Nobody ever said free stuff always as to hurt. Just that sometimes it’s not allowed, and you have to accept that.

  • Steve

    If your using product placement in your shows, then piracy is a benefit. I’m certain one of the reasons media companies keep close tabs on download numbers is because of this reason.

    Mind you, I’m not expecting to see to many MacBook Pro’s or iPhones in Game of Thrones :p

  • http://twitter.com/chrisdumler Chris Dumler

    This is ridiculous in my mind. You know why? People will pay for it if you give them a convenient option. Piracy is going to happen anyway – so at that point you say it’s helping “cultural buzz”. But you’re just leaving money on the table when people ARE willing to support quality content.

  • Steve

    Its been one of my arguments for while.

    The sad fact is that via torrents and other warez sites, users are offered a better and more convenient service than that offered by the media industry.

    Change is happening, its been happening for several years, but the media bosses still want the days where you either went to the cinema to see a movie or you waited until it shown on TV.

    It’s time to put the power of choice in the consumers hand, because we are willing to pay for it.

  • Liggerstuxin

    Piracy is still hard via repos like 1channel and navi-x, and easy with torrents. Hopefully as a (disabled low income person, I know it’s wrong, but I’m coming clean here) pirate, it doesn’t get any easier, cause right now not everyone can’t do it. And this is like jailbreaking, useless if its free to EVERYONE.