re: Game of Thrones' Director Claims Illegal Downloads Don't Matter

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Moral of the story, listen to your customers and people will pay to see them.

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FIFY.

Quality programming is only one piece of the puzzle. Conventional Cable TV in its current model is antiquated and will eventually fail because of digital media. The record companies finally figured this out. Its not been that long ago that the war on Napster happened, and despite the record companies perceived "victory", consumers got what they wanted: choices. We no longer have to pay $15-20 to legally buy an album we only want one song for. We can stream music wirelessly. Record companies are catering and embracing the digital download.

The traditional idiots in the movie industry are trying to use the victories won by the recording industry to "have their cake and eat it too." They dont have to combat mainstream pirating like Napster and Limewire, and they are resisting the shift to digital media as wholly as possible. Look at the Netflix fiasco. They saw a system immensely popular with consumers that threatened the traditional model, so they tried to rape Netflix with price increases. What they didn't count on was the overwhelming response from consumers. Netflix, stupidly, had no idea how strong they were and should have taken the studios actions to the world of social media and fought.

HBO is actually ahead of the game pushing HBO Go. The format is great, its very reliable, and all of their original content is available. I wouldn't be surprised if HBO is the first premium subscriber to break the cord and start offering online/streaming subscriptions. All it takes is for these distributors to give the consumers what they want and realize the power they really have.