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Piracy
GRRM: We are the most pirated show in the world. In a strange way that's a compliment. It's the sort of compliment that you could do without, probably, but it is a compliment nonetheless. I know that a lot of that piracy is taking place in Australia, where for whatever reason they delay the show six months. So people are just anxious to see it. I think we're seeing — we're still right in the midst of a whole new template evolving for television and film entertainment. And the old template, where shows were made in America, and then they were sold to foreign broadcasters who would show them the next week, or the next month, or six months later, or six years later, or whenever they felt like it — that's breaking down. Because it is a global marketplace.
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And it's breaking down in publishing, too. I mean my British publishers and my American publishers coordinated to release the last book so they came out on the same day. Because otherwise, with Amazon and other online book sellers, if it comes out in one country before the other country, whoever is later loses thousands of sales because of people ordering it. So you're seeing — and new delivery methods, like Netflix. You know they just released an entire series that's never been broadcast. You just get it, and you get it all at once, and you binge watch it.
""I leave this to the guys in the suits.""
I think nobody knows what the final shape of all these things are gonna be. Just when you think you perceive what the new template is, some other new innovation comes along and changes all the rules. So they're interesting times for people. But fortunately I don't have to worry about that. I'm writing about a medieval land where they do communicate by tying messages to the legs of ravens, and they can't get anywhere faster than where they can get on a horse. Or perhaps a dragon, but they're only a few of those. So, I leave this to the guys in the suits and the guys with the really big computers who understand that stuff and they can figure out the business models. I'll just tell my stories.
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