[excuse-me]

>Really?! How dare they!

How dare the executives lose shareholder's money by refusing to allow new customers to pay for the content and so make profit.

Preferring instead to stick to cozy little cartels where they sell content only to the same cable stations that they used to work for, and will go back to when their bonuses clear.

Remember it's not 'their' company - the company belongs to my pension fund - 'they' are supposed to be working for me.

[guccimane]

Interesting angle, I've never seen someone come at it from the POV of the shareholder. If you're unhappy as a shareholder with HBO's strategy, I can understand that. Do whatever shareholders do in that scenario, I guess. (Vote? Sell?)

From the consumer side though, HBO has no obligation to do what a bunch of people on the internet who think they understand HBO's business better than HBO does think they should do.

[wpietri]

> HBO has no obligation to do what a bunch of people on the internet who think they understand HBO's business better than HBO does think they should do.

They have no legal obligation. Currently, anyhow.

But you forget who makes the laws, and how the content gets delivered, and what people make this content out of.

Copyright is a temporary and limited monopoly granted by the people to encourage the production of intellectual property. The laws we have are an artifact of the economics and politics of their time. Information technology has radically changed both the economics and society's views. The laws will likely change as well.

HBO didn't invent dragons or kings or sex. They didn't create the Internet. They don't own the public airwaves or the public land over which the cables run. They don't own the fans. They didn't make the social media sites and bar tables where they get their word-of-mouth publicity.

HBO and all involved should be fairly compensated for their hard work and creativity. But the property rights you treat as absolutes are just convenient fictions we created together. People shouldn't feel entitled to the Game of Thrones. But neither should Time Warner executives feel entitled to use the public courts and police to ruin people's lives for sharing things they like.

We're living in the greatest revolution in information production and distribution since Gutenberg. Things will change.

[excuse-me]

>HBO has no obligation to do what a bunch of people on the internet

True - but any company that refuses to listen to existing and potential customers has to raise concerns.

unless you are Apple of course and then you can do what you want ;-)

I don't know if I am a shareholder. But most shares are held by pension funds so when the boss of a company like RIM/Nokia/Sony do something stupid it's not the CEO that suffers.