Let's all bootleg HBO and GAME OF THRONES - it's OK, says Jeff Bewkes

You probably never heard of a fat cat puke named Jeff Bewkes.

And if you're not a fucking nerd with nothing better to do, you haven't watched "Game of Throw Up" aka "Game of Thrones," the latest bullshit fantasy show. Really, I am so fucking sick of sword and sandal and sorcery stupidness...people dressed up in medieval outfits or Hobbit & Troll costumes or whatever, talking in idiotic fake languages and the rest of it. You really have a LOT of time on your hands if you read 700 page books creating some bullshit fairy tale world or watch zillion-part TV shows and movie series that go and on and on with cleavage-showing maidens and homoerotic heroes and the usual wise old faggot actor with a beard.

The point is...according to Mr. Puke, it's OK to download a pdf of the complete Harry Potter, or every episode of "Game of Thrones" and all the rest of it...because, heh heh, Mr. Puke is making a fortune anyway, and so is Rowling and Martin and the actors who are in these hit movie and TV adaptations.

Some blogger twit at FORBES wrote all this up, happily telling the world that "Thrones" is such a hit, it's won the honor of most-illegally downloaded show. Yeah, that's right, these days, we take for granted that people steal copyrighted material. What's next, Rolling Stone reviewing the best stealing blogs? Guess what...they began to do JUST THAT, until the record labels got angry and said, "We'll stop sending you product and refuse interview requests if you continue being assholes."

The Forbes guy also smugly tells the world that just because pirates are stealing the world blind, and people are grabbing it like pigs on an apple farm, all this "does not automatically equal a lost sale."

My answer to puke Bewkes and the fuck-head from Forbes is simple: YOU'RE FULL OF SHIT.

First off, HBO ain't the only network on cable TV. Many are struggling along, many are being choked by evil Time Warner and get booted off if they beg for a little bigger slice of the subscription pie. Time Warner charges about $25 just for BASIC CABLE. That's about 10 lousy channels! They've warred with CBS and others, who've said, "Look, $25 a month rich bastard...why not give us fifteen cents instead of eleven cents per subscriber..." And the answer comes back, "Hey CBS, you're rich bastards too. You don't need it!"

Recently, someone I know had the good fortune to be hired for a made-for-TV movie. Only problem...it was for one of the also-ran cable networks...TNT, Lifetime...one of those types. So guess what. She had to leave home and go to fuckin' CANADA for the duration of the project, because there wasn't enough money to work in Hollywood. A few actors that could've been hired, were NOT hired because the budget wouldn't allow for it. Non-union people were all over the place. This is also the case for some HBO projects, I must add...ones that aren't as glamorous and successful as "Thrones."

It's insane and deplorable that anyone, especially one for a magazine such as FORBES, to shrug and say that thievery is irrelevant. Go tell that to the record stores, bookstores and video stores that fell because people stopped buying. Tell that to me and my friends, who are being paid LESS, not MORE. I won't mention his name, but there was a folk artist, with several albums both solo and with a trio, who killed himself. Why? He couldn't even afford a dentist. He was mostly offered no-pay gigs at festivals. His royalty check had shrunk to nearly nothing. He was depressed and piracy did not help. You would not have wanted to identify the body of a man who had put a shotgun to his face.

Just because "Game of Thrones" is making money doesn't mean piracy doesn't hurt. They could be making more. So could McCartney and Elton John. But the real tragedy is the number of artists who aren't signed at all...dropped because they don't have such a huge following that they can make money no matter how many steal the albums. "Money" Mayweather gets a fortune from HBO to fight patsy idiots. But down the dial, on ESPN, pugs are getting their brains bashed in for spare change. Some cable channels can't afford to pay what HBO and Showtime can afford.

Mr. Puke Bewkes and Mr. Forbes Blogger, how about considering a little something called...RESPECT?

How about fostering some moral values? How about being able to differentiate between a victimless crime and one that really hurts?

How about understanding that even jaywalking is not something to condone? You don't tell an 8-year-old, "Oh, it's fine if you jaywalk." The kid is likely to get killed. It's very rare when it's ok to be a Robin Hood.

Isn't it better to let people know that copyright is NOT copywrong, and that saying "yo ho ho I'm a pirate" is childish and irresponsible? Shouldn't we teach our children to stop looking to get everything free? Isn't it time to punish the assholes of the world? Bootlegging is not a victimless crime.

I used to live in a shitty walk-up building, and like pukey Bewkes says, "people have always been running wires down on the back of apartment buildings and sharing with their neighbors." Only I was being "shared" from without permission! I wondered, "Why the FUCK am I spending all this money...and my signal is crap?" I was told it's because the building had old wiring, and blah blah blah. But one day a cable TV repairman came to me and told me, "Your upstairs neighbor has split your wire."

Yeah. The fucking Italian bastard upstairs who liked to brag about date-rape all the time, and "you give her a few cracks across the face, and she comes across." The one currently enslaving an ugly black bi-polar woman on heavy medication. The one who refused to get carpet (a law) so I wouldn't have to hear his noise. So I said, "Well, are you going to prosecute that prick?" No. "Are you going to give me credit for a year of bad reception?" No. "So what's going to happen?" "The guy's gonna have to subscribe to cable, nor not have any at all."

We live in a world where morality is as loose as a diarrhetic elephant's anus. And just as stinky. The message is: "Sure, cheat on your spouse, sext with strangers on line, take drugs, waste your money on Internet gambling, buy somebody else's term paper on line, and download everything freeeee." It's ALL permitted. Really? We have to keep going further and further into stupidity? What the FUCK is next? Maybe it'll be Tesco with a sign in front saying: "Shoplifters Welcome. We are making so much money, we don't care."

The store that has a security guard up front, or security tags on the merchandise, is at least saying, "We are against stealing, and we don't want to SHARE with you." HBO, Time Warner, Forbes...they're saying "oh, it's ok, it does no harm, everyone can afford it, it's no big deal." And THAT IS WRONG.