You don't have to pay £600 a year if GoT is your bag - have a look at a NOW! TV box with the entertainment package, £25 or thereabouts will get you three months access to Sky Atlantic - its a Sky product so you're still shelling out to Uncle Rupert but you haven't signed away your firstborn to get it.

...and if you're lucky (like us) then something will go wrong in your first week of access and they'll cut you off accidentally at a time when you never even realised they'd cut you off and they'll email you to say they are giving you an extra month for free by way of an apology.

It doesn't bother me, I'm just curious why some people believe access to art, whether it be music, tv, film, whatever, should be an entitlement they should get for free?

Oh I can more than afford Sky's prices, sadly they deny access to some of their content if you have a different supplier.
They want to keep the content exclusive to their system and ignore those on Virginmedia who are more than willing to pay for the channel.

If you are willing to pay the prices, why don't you switch to Sky then and have the chance to view said channels and programmes?

I can understand people being anti-piracy from the angle that musicians, actors and writers should earn money for their work.

Don't really understand why anyone would be anti-piracy when TV networks are just playing annoying money games. When TV execs play that stupid game customers shouldn't be bending over backwards to make sure they get paid, they should just say "Screw you" to the TV companies and just download without any guilt.

Sky will be paying a fortune to the US TV networks in order to get certain programmes to be exclusive to their network - so why should they have to let other providers show it?

Will you be doing the same with Champions League football, when it moves to BT and not on Sky Sports, cos you won't pay the extra to BT to carry their channel? They've paid a hell of a lot of money for exclusivity but because you are too tight to pay to have it, you will happily download or stream illegally?

The success of services like Netflix and iTunes are evidence that if you make the content easily accessible, people will willingly pay to access it.

On the subject of GoT, one of the reasons that is one of the most pirated series is because, as BG says, it is almost impossible to access legally without a Sky or HBO subscription. If it could be accessed on Netflix, LoveFilm, iTunes, HuLu or any other on demand platform, piracy rates would be lower.

The other issue, IMO, is the delay in worldwide broadcasts. We all know that the US gets shows 3-6 months before we do, but why? In a world of social media, its pretty hard to avoid spoilers before you get to watch whatever episode people were talking about 3 months ago.

And has piracy really harmed the success of GoT? If anything, it has enhanced it.

I don't condone piracy, but this is yet another example of the media industry trying to fight the internet, rather than make use of it.

I will happily download or stream CL football next season so I don't have to listen to the wisdom of Andy Townsend or Michael Owen.

That's ridiculous. HBO have invested hundreds of millions in producing Game of Thrones ($50-60 million for series 1 alone). It's their product, they own it. This investment has to deliver a profit, and part of that is selling the product to overseas broadcasters. Sky, in turn, has paid a reported £150million for access to HBO's catalogue and are perfectly entitled to sell it to make their profit in turn.

What makes Game of Thrones any different to paying for other products that are the result of massive investment? Nothing. Or is it that you don't like your money going to 'big business', in which case I assume you don't buy cars, mobile phones, computers, flights, petrol, most food brands, etc, etc?

I find it sad people get so worked up about Sky Atlantic and series like GoT. It's a TV series, nothing more. if you're so desperate to watch it either pay up or download illegally and live with your conscience and the terrifying risk of a sternly worded letter from your ISP. I'm on Virgin and watched some of series 1 on Sky 1, never saw what was so amazing about it and certainly not bothered I can't see the rest yet.

Not that I'm precious about piracy - I watch the occasional film via a well known mobile app, either streamed directly to my TV or downloaded to hard drive. They're films I wouldn't pay to watch and if my ISP somehow manages to block it all I wouldn't be bothered. I'm not going to stamp my feet about watching a film or TV.

From my point of view, I am happy to pay for my TV, but I won't be made to pay through the nose for something I can easily watch for free - too much Yorkshire in me for that!

I pay £7 to netflix each month, even though I could turn up all of that for free but its reasonable and I like the ease of it and so I pay it.

Sky on the other hand insist that you pay a fortune for a steaming turd with a few gold nuggets in it. I would rather just access the nuggets and leave sky to flog the rest to some other sap.

EDIT: as for GoT, it's just a really well made, well acted and interesting programme, I watch very little TV but I look forward to this coming on, same with house of cards which was also excellent.

Some can't have Sky no matter what. We can only have a very basic range of products due to having a communal system in the block and we are not allowed other dishes.



No need, BT have some sense and have made the service available to Virginmedia users, I can have it in full HD right on my TV without any dodgyness at all.

Which is the whole point of it - Virgin have done a deal with BT to gain exclusivity for their customers in order to gain market share, same as Sky have done with HBO! So just because one has done a deal that the other hasn't, what gives you the opinion to think it's right to go and illegally view whichever show/match etc you don't legally pay for thru your Sky/Virgin subscription??

Woooooooosh...

I remember an interview with Paul McCartney which he said the Beatles were naive because they thought music was something free, in the air, and couldn’t be owned by anyone....looks like at the moment it isn’t. I can’t help liking a world full of free music.
And taping off the radio really is killing the music industry.