In a recent interview with the BBC, Breaking Bad showrunner Vince Gilligan discussed the complicated effect piracy had on the show. His words:
“I see that there’s two sides to this coin, if I’m being honest,” Gilligan said in an interview with the BBC.
“In some ways the illegal downloading has helped us, certainly, in terms of brand awareness,” he said. “The downside is a lot of folks who worked on the show would have made more money, myself included, if all those downloads had been legal.” [Variety]
Yup. That about sums it up. And we can go round and round in circles debating it, just like we did last time. One of you will say “Piracy is stealing and stealing is wrong,” then another will say “Yeah, but I only used piracy to get caught up and then I watched the last season live and gave them tons of free publicity on my Tumblr,” then the first person will say “Doesn’t matter. It’s still taking money out of the content creators’ pockets. You should have used Netflix or bought the DVDs,” and the second person will be all “DVDs?! Are you insane?! I can’t afford to pay $50 a season! Without pirating I wouldn’t have been able to get caught up at all, so they didn’t actually lose any money on me. They gained whatever my final season viewership brought them,” then the first person will say “Dude. Netflix is like $8 a month. Come on.” Then a third person will run in and scream “BUT I LIVE IN SWEDEN AND WE DON’T GET AMC,” and someone will smash a beer bottle on the table and brandish the jagged edge as a weapon, and then it will all go straight to hell.
Not worth it, I say. Not on a Friday.
