Co-Producer "Heroes" and Lost talks about torrents

It’s no secret that serials constitute the lion’s share of traffic in torrent networks. According to statistics from foreign trackers, some episodes of popular TV shows, such as Heroes and Lost, downloaded up to 10 million people.

In this regard, it is quite interesting to read the interview with Jesse Alexander , co-producer and one of the authors of the script for both of the aforementioned TV shows, which he gave to the site TorrentFreak.

Torrent geeks are sure that the so-called “piracy” through torrents actually benefits the TV series. The popularity of films is growing, and the army of fans is guaranteed not to miss a single series, thereby maintaining interest. Through the torrents, TV shows receive free advertising: as viral marketing, it covers millions of new viewers who otherwise would never have watched this show. When Jesse Alexander was directly asked if the torrents helped expand the audience of the series, he didn’t prevaricate and answered bluntly: “Yes, they do.”
')
And this is said by the co-producer, who is directly responsible for the commercial success of the project.

Of course, Jesse would not want absolutely all viewers to watch the series only from torrents. But, in his opinion, it is useless to fight this reality. Such popularity of P2P signals the potential demand for new generation television services: interactive television and video on demand. TV channels should understand this and offer new interactive services to the market, give the series fans a chance to communicate with each other and find ways to generate income from every viewer around the world, no matter how they download videos.

“It's like in the music industry,” says Jesse. - The reality is that people share music. Musicians are now making money by attracting people to concerts, through fan sites, as well as organizing certain premium class parties. TV channels are too focused on exclusive content instead of building a community. I think this is a mistake. ”

The success of “Heroes” in torrents did not go unnoticed by the creators of the series. The entire film crew and the actors themselves often discussed this during filming, Jesse admits. No one was surprised when in France hundreds of fans recognized the actors on the streets , although the series was not officially broadcast in this country. The actors themselves have become world stars thanks to the torrents, and they understand this very well.

The reasons for "piracy" on such a huge scale, according to Jesse, are partly due to the slowness of the rights holders, who show the series in other countries about six months after the United States. Naturally, in our time, people just can not wait that long. In the future, this period should be significantly reduced.

Television of the future will become more interactive and will work in an international format, as well as support the community. The series themselves will gradually become more and more important part in the work of these social networks.

On the question of whether he himself downloaded films from torrents, Jessie said that he could not directly answer this question, but he was well versed in technology (of course, it means - definitely, downloaded).

No wonder that Jesse Alexander understands modern technologies better than other representatives of the television industry. Recently it became known that with his participation began filming a new 13-series Pirate TV, dedicated to ... video pirates and the important role they play in modern society (the teaser of the series , as well as in free access, has a book ). “Society needs a serious discussion about the future of intellectual property,” says Jesse.