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Comment by hartror | Hacker News Reader

"We pirate Game of Thrones, we use our friend's HBOGO login to watch True Blood…"

Yeah I am not associating myself with that. Perhaps something like "We don't currently pay to see your content".

Honestly as an Australian I don't see this happening here, the cable here is an effective monopoly and unless they get a cut of the profits they're not going let HBO do this. It might be completely against their business model as well due to the fact GoT has received more publicity here than any other cable show in some time. This has likely been driving sales for them and so would be bad for their business.

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Interestingly GoT seasons 1 and 2 are available on iTunes in Australia. The latest episodes only take an extra week to show up from when they're first screened in the US. Even so, Australians apparently pirate the show in greater numbers than elsewhere.

Could be because it's $3/episode or it's only standard def or it's a week late. My guess is people find it just as easy to torrent it so don't even bother to look at paid options.

So if Australia is being used by HBO as a test market (quite common for US companies in the past), the stats on offering a paid online option in parallel to cable to reduce piracy don't look compelling to me in this case.

GoT is absolutely huge in Australia - I am continually surprised at the people I know who are well outside the target demographic and watch it. Monday is Game of Thrones night, where everyone watches it, and then talks about it with their mates, which seems to be a significant part of the experience (I'm not a fan of the show personally).

A week later is one week too late - you need to be looking at hours after screening. Australia has a huge pirated TV culture because of how awful our free to air is (pay TV is only really starting to catch on due to exclusive sports licenses, and in terms of getting US content it is almost as terrible as free to air), and everyone just torrents what they want to watch.

Guess we'll find out next week if it's the screening time because season 2 just finished. So from next Monday will there be a drop in Australian GoT torrents because the show is equally available on iTunes? It'd be interesting to see the stats.

The other thing is that on iiNet (Australia's #2 ISP), iTunes downloads aren't counted against download quota. So there's some incentive to buy for people on the basic plans.

iTunes only has SD though right?

It's the late part. See an example in the gaming industry here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe...

Can somebody confirm if GoT Season 2 is available in Australia iTunes? US will not get Season 2 until the disc release next year.

Season 2 is available up to episode 9 as a season pass for AUD28.99

If you were really determined to buy it outside Aus I suppose you could buy an iTunes gift card from here and then login to iTunes via an Aussie proxy. Happens surprisingly often in the other direction.

You really would be paying the 'gold price' too as the $AUD is pretty strong due to the price of gold and other commodities mined here.

It's an attention grabber, sheesh.

No it says "I think I'm entitled to your content and so I'm going to probably be a shitty customer"

So you're anti-entitlement to very easily copyable things? Why?

To assure you I'm not trolling... take a look at this discussion before replying: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe...

That really isn't a discussion. It is one CEO explaining their decision to make their products available online. Kessler has a different idea of how HBO is going to position themselves online. Why is Newell's opinion on his business model any more valid than Kessler's?

I never understood this thing about "easily copy-able" being a reason to strip a business of their distribution rights. Yes, the actual string of 1's and 0's is easy to copy. But physically making a 60 minute episode of Game of Thrones is not so easy. I think the work they have put into making their product has earned them the right to control the distribution of their product just as much as any other business. If you don't like the way HBO distributes Game of Thrones... you don't go pirate it... you go film it yourself (although I suspect that would not be allowed either).

I think right now, HBO makes more money from selling to the cable companies than they could selling directly to people. The cable companies are very good customers of them, and I think that HBO as a company is better off not taking the money of people that feel entitled to their content.

HBO Go puts the technical infrastructure in place to eliminate the cable companies as customers if this ever changes, so they have some chance of surviving the likely collapse of the cable industry

No, it says "everyone is finding a way to watch it whether it is on HBO or by pirating, so why don't you figure out how to enable everyone to watch it without infringing on copyright and make some money in the process?"

Australian bandwidth is atrociously expensive too.

Unlimited for $60 isn't too bad (including line rental)

From which ISP?

The quality fluctuates wildly. If its $60 unlimited from a good ISP like iinet then it's a good deal, if it's with TPG or Dodo then it's not worth the hassle.

I'm not talking about residential lines. I'm talking about servers.

Right you are! I've had both colo in the US a number of years ago and current colo here in Australia. Couldn't agree more. Do you think that's due to the cost of "shipment" or just greedy men in the middle?

I have no idea. Haven't bothered to look into it.

Yeah I am not associating myself with that.

The piracy angle, or those particular programmes?

Piracy of course.

Just checking. (sorry, was just the first thought that entered my head and it made me giggle)

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