Viewers like you help make PBS (Thank you 😃) . Support your local PBS Member Station here: https://to.pbs.org/donateidea Here's an idea: Game Of Thrones owes its success to piracy. If you're like us, you LOVE Game of Thrones. But if you're also like us, you may not, technically, have... cable. So how are we seeing this amazing show on HBO, which is stuck behind a pay wall? A huge amount of viewers (not us of course, no no no) are downloading the show illegally. But despite being the most pirated show of 2012, the Game of Thrones DVDs are top sellers, breaking HBO's own sales records!! Could it be that piracy is actually HELPING the show?! Video Links: College Humor - The Secret of HBO Go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDUI9nXpK7E The IT Crowd - Series 2 - Episode 3: Piracy warning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg Text Sources: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau quote: http://bit.ly/13bWiHQ The German Association for Consumer research: http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/6/150152 Study of the relationship between the box office sales numbers for small-or-targeted audience movies and the shutdown of Megaupload: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2176246 The American Assembly Findings: http://piracy.americanassembly.org/where-do-music-collections-come-from/ Tweet of the week: http://bit.ly/YGiodh Let us know what sorts of crazy ideas you have, about this episode and otherwise: Tweet at us! @pbsideachannel (yes, the longest twitter username ever) Email us! pbsideachannel [at] gmail [dot] com Idea Channel Facebook! http://Facebook.com/pbsideachannel Hosted by Mike Rugnetta (@mikerugnetta) Made by Kornhaber Brown (http://www.kornhaberbrown.com/) Music: Roglok: http://vimeo.com/musicstore/track/21166 Binarpilot: http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/661417/geeks Level 5: Room for the Homeless: http://www.jamendo.com/en/list/a101325/level-5 Want some more Idea Channel? Here's Last Week's episode: "Do Knock-Offs Prove the Value of a Brand?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWhf42Hdeq0 Want another one? Here ya go: "Is Minecraft the Ultimate Educational Tool?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0BN5AWOe8 Here's Some More: "What Does the Russian Meteorite Tell Us About Surveillance Culture?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjlb3Iu071M