The CEO of Rovio, the company behind the mega-hit Angry Birds, says that piracy may help to generate revenue, and described the music industry's way of handling web piracy as a good example of "what not to do"
The studio responsible for the global hit, Angry Birds, says piracy is not thing that concerns them, and that it may actually help generate revenue.
Pointing to the music industry as an example of "what not to do" when it comes to dealing with the web piracy problem, Rovio's chief executive Mikael Hed warned of the "futile" attempts to sue web pirates, because pirates are not necessarily harming the Angry Birds brand.
"We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy," said Hed.
But if piracy can help build the Angry Birds brand, to get more people to be interested in the game, whether they paid for it or not, then it's not something that should be fought. "Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day," added Hed.
But Hed says that there are also lessons to learn from the music business, and the important distinction between "customers" and "fans". "We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have. If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow."
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