‘Sons of Anarchy’ creator Kurt Sutter speaks out on piracy battle; is there a real solution?
The great thing about the modern TV landscape is that we are blessed to have so many fantastic options at our disposal. You have shows like “True Detective,” “Game of Thrones,” “The Walking Dead,” “Veep,” “Sons of Anarchy,” and so many more that represent the quality revolution to our favorite medium. The gap between film and TV has in our mind leveled out in the past ten years, and that is an achievement that most showrunners, directors, and crew members should celebrate.
Unfortunately, the internet has repeatedly shown us time and time again that having nice things almost instantly equals people taking advantage of the situation. The ongoing battle over TV privacy shows that more than ever. Look at a show like “Game of Thrones,” which is the most-pirated show on television by a landslide. There were so many illegal downloads of the show last season that it topped the average live viewership for an episode. From one vantage point, HBO should be thrilled that there is such demand for something they have created; at the same time, they should also bemoan the money that they are losing through services and downloads that they cannot pull a profit from.
The reason that this story is particularly newsworthy this weekend is thanks to an essay written by “Sons of Anarchy” creator Kurt Sutter in Slate, in which he goes after Google for allowing easy, free access to copyrighted material through the simple power of a search button. It can be an easy facilitator of piracy, and while there are times in which this is policed, there are also times in which it is not.
Sutter makes a valuable point in that while he may make good money thanks to the successes of his shows, that does not mean that everyone involved does. There are hard-working people on the crews of many of your favorite shows whose work is taken advantage of for free, and when a show is canceled for ratings or cost reasons, these people become the same as anyone else who is unemployed on an average salary.
Is there really a better way to stop TV piracy? The reality that everyone has to accept is that to a certain measure, it’s always going to exist. When the pirates far outnumber the police, it’s impossible to catch every ship before it sails out to sea. Search engines may at times be a major part of the problem, but even if there is ever an addition to a search algorithm that does exclude websites containing copyrighted material, the internet will likely just find another way to get around it such as social media, forums, or another search engine out there. They always seem to; if you deprive someone of what they want in this culture of instant-gratification, they will go through great lengths to get it without paying for it. This is why Sutter cites money and data streams as reasons for the current search philosophies. We imagine someone in a CEO’s office out there thinking that if other companies are going to profit anyway, why should they be the catalyst for change?
As TV writers who have been in the industry for many years, what we have found the most problematic in all this are those out there in the media so desperate for attention (a.k.a. page views) that they draw in page views advertising illegal streams and then take advantage of search engines the same way download sites do. They mask taking copyrighted material under the guise of an “article.” How are these establishments spared from criticism for propagating copyright violations? (Full disclosure: We have posted occasional streams in the past, but they are always either official ones via a network or one approved by the event, such as a red-carpet stream for an awards show.)
We do like to view ourselves as solutions-oriented, but when dealing with a situation like piracy, unfortunately the only solution we can think of is an idealistic one that is many, many years from ever happening. We are a believer that viewers should be able to check out the content that they want, and should not always be penalized for not having the $50 a month for a cable package or for being in a part of the world where the show does not regularly air. However, there has to be a way in the process that content creators can still profit, and not see their profits siphoned. Imagine if an extra million viewers globally were able to watch a show that was otherwise struggling to stay on the bubble (see “Community” for so many years); more revenue could save jobs, or give a show the resources it needs to produce content of an even higher quality.
Our idealistic view someday is for a more advertiser-based global model, where a program can be watched anywhere around the world in return for either viewing extended and localized advertisements (many affiliates already have such technology), or taking part in some sort of interactive commercial that ensures that you are actually engaging versus just muting an ad and walking away. Even if this was a bridge too far for a conservative media industry, even just extending the cable model to the internet, and allowing viewers to take their content with them anywhere in the world, would be a more acceptable solution. There are people out there who are willing to pay for content, but aren’t because the options are not out there for what they want to pay for.
Obviously, there are huge hurdles to there ever being a global television marketplace, or an advanced version of Hulu that contains extended / interactive advertisements for premium content: Licensing, international broadcast rights, and the money that all cable companies currently receive top the list. This is admittedly a pipe dream; there are so many right now in the cable industry who feel like the current system works, and they are not going to budge to a new frontier like the internet (especially when Nielsen tracks everything on TV so easily). There are also many advertisers who are just starting to see the light that video content online can be profitable after many years of shutting it out. Compared to television, the internet is still the new kid at school you are trying to figure out. A better understanding of the form over time will produce better results. Unfortunately for creators, this “new kid” also unfortunately happens to be one with superpowers that television never had.
As entertainment becomes more global and the world continues to be more connected than ever, we can only hope that the outdated system of content viewing can be revolutionized in the ten years ahead, for in spite of whatever apps or extensions or occasional “view with your cable package ID” options that you are given to legally watch content on your computer, the industry is still far behind the times compared to user interest and demand. In order for content creators to receive their fair share, many of the same people in the industry who claim to support them need to realize that this is not 2004 anymore. Adaptation is key, and everything from search policies to web streaming and international broadcasting rights need to be examined.
We’re sure we will have more on this in the months ahead, at least judging from the fact that we just spent 1,200 words on a Saturday night discussing it at length. For now, we welcome your thoughts on the subject of what can be done to correct this issue; you can also sign up for our CarterMatt Newsletter to get more updates on everything we cover via email.
Photo: FX