Breaking Bad Breaks Piracy Records

But wait

I though lack of availability of content was why people pirated. The last episode is legally available at places like Amazon, Vudu, iTunes etc so why is there so much piracy? This kind of disproves the point if you make content available people will stop pirating.

Maybe because it's not available from iTunes, Amazon, Vudo, etc. until the next day in the USA. In other countries, it's not available for weeks or months.

What is "Breaking Bad"?

I guess with only ten million viewers I'm not alone. I know what M.A.S.H. was; it had over ten times the number of viewers. Of course it was free OTA.

Re: But wait

Re: What is "Breaking Bad"?

Yes and most people still didn't have cable so you had 3 choices

Re: But wait

Did you read the fucking article? Most were from other countries. Only 14.5% were from the USA. Geez dude, stop being so negative all the time.

Re: What is "Breaking Bad"?

Re: But wait

That argument doesn't hold water. US was second highest and nearly equal to highest.

"18% of downloaders were from Australia, while 14.5% were from the United States and 9.3% were from the UK."

If 14.5% were from USA, that means 85.5% were from other countries. Doesn't matter who the US was close to or equal to. My point is, 85.5% do not have legal access for weeks or months.

Maybe, but one instance of something hardly proves the fact. Even in scientific experiments this is true. The test must be reproducible.

It's not just the access

The access has to be in a format the customer wants. Maybe they don't want to deal with APPLE and their proprietary BS. Maybe they'd like it in something that can be moved to other mediums for personal use. The amount of anti-piracy apps out there and such make it impossible for people to watch something on the device of THEIR choice, not the choice of the provider...hence the piracy. You can't force people to sign up for services if they don't want those services, just the show. Try again providers, consumers want options, and not just YOUR APPROVED options.

Re: But wait

its also not free or subscription based it pay per view that shit don't fly well with most

I agree or make it viewable online first at the same time for everyone in there zip code that would also put more ppl online at a given time for targeted adds aka hulu the tech is there to make a killing and never need to charge more than a subscription fee, when they figure this out it will get better till then its ran by old non tech ppl that don't understand technology and there just going to burry them selves, I see it no differently than recording it on vhs and letting all my friends borrow it. IF MPAA hd there way every person in front of the same tv would have to pay to watch like a theater there all crooks

Not suprising

To those saying its available legally... Video games have always been available legally but I used to pirate them until steam came a long. steam was so easy and painless that it was easier to pay 5 dollars than it was to pirate and deal with potential viruses.

Piracy has almost always, to me, been a service issue and not an availability issue. Sure it's available on hulu but even if I pay I still have to watch adds, can only stream it (can't dll for offline viewing) and it is still going to be delayed.

I personally haven't watched BB except for the random episode at my parents but as a comparison of what is available automatically: I could have a torrent/usenet app autosubscribed to download said show, send a notification to my phone that it is available, and then watch it through plex which, with a subscription, allows me to download it for offline viewing painlessly on any of my devices. The current options out there (itunes, amazon, netflix etc.) offer nowhere near that level of convienence.

The day I can subscribe to something like plex with total control of my content (NO DRM) is the day I will stop current activities.

EDIT to add: There is currently no way for me to legally purchase the level of service that I want.

iTunes has DRM (last I checked) and cannot be automated.
Amazon has DRM and cannot be automated.
Netflix has DRM and cannot be downloaded or viewed on all of my systems without significant hackery and is delayed significantly.
Hulu, even with paying, forces me to watch ads, cannot automate, cannot download.
DVDs only come out AFTER the entire season is done and cannot be automated.

Why would it be so hard for the media companies to make something more like steam? Let me purchase a season or show (before it finishes or even in advance) and download non drm files the same day it airs with available tie ins to various apps (which all have open source, preprogrammed tieins). They could make it so that as soon as a file is released to them they push it to my computer. Let me redownload the file at a later date in case of a hard drive failure etc.

It's not like their current DRM does anything at all as this torrent swarm shows. It only hurts legitimate customers.

Re: But wait

Re: What is "Breaking Bad"?

Re: It's not just the access

Re: Not suprising

Re: But wait

I think the content owners are the ones who are losing out with the 24 hour period.

The consumer has no need to wait. They can download it a few minutes after its done airing and watch it for free. Their alternative option is to wait 24 hours and pay for it.

Seriously how did you phrase your sentence like the consumer is in the wrong? Yes pirating is wrong, but when pirating is the only given choice for those 24 hours, what decision do you expect people to make.

As for other countries. I can't understand why there's international wait restrictions anymore. With the internet once something airs on a tv stations somewhere it's basically aired throughout the entire planet. Expecting fans to wait weeks/months to watch it as asking a lot.

I'm not condoning piracy. I'm asking them to release the products everywhere at the same time. The only people getting hurt by staggering releases are the content owners.

Re: What is "Breaking Bad"?

We'll probably never see ratings like that again for scripted television. There's too many options now. Netflix to watch great classic old shows, 200 channels on cable, internet video, piracy etc...

There weren't alot of options in the early 80s. No internet, no home video (you could only rent VHS), and a handful of channels.

People watch Mash because there wasn't a hell of a lot else to watch (I did like the early seasons of Mash, the later seasons got preachy. I'm not sure how they hold up today).

With the exception of live sports events I'm not sure we'll ever see a rating like Mash got.

10 million views is pretty good in the 21st century. Ratings are way lower across the board than they were at the turn of the millennium. 10 million is pretty damn good.

Re: Not suprising

It works both ways. I think it's partially the robin hood effect. Many people don't feel guilty when stealing from mega corporations who seem to also lack a set of morals.

I'm not sure how it impacts the future. Maybe the media companies will stop locking everything up and suing everybody and earn some goodwill.

cry me a river

I agree. I like to collect blurays and find it so annoying that it takes forever to get through all the ads and warning screens. The warning screens take a few minutes to get through. It burns even more know that if you pirating bluray it would of gone right into the movie.

I have no idea why the pull all those warnings on the discs that people actually pay for. They're warning and agitating the wrong people.

Re: But wait