“Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day.” is something you don’t hear firms say normally.
Every large private company is terrified of piracy and is fighting it to death. But, it seems the scene is quite different when it comes to Angry Birds. Rather than advocating policies against piracy, Rovio says it is actually good for business!
“We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products. There are tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products. We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy.” Says Rovio CEO Michael Hed.
I mean while Google, Yahoo and others are crying their hearts out about piracy and a major case about firms like Megaupload and the Pirate Bay is out, Rovio says there is a lot to learn from it. Whoa! That is something quite unexpected.
But Hed does have some strong points too. Piracy, whether you like it or not, contributes a lot to the publicity of the brand. What he is indicating is one shouldn’t worry about or spend money on combating piracy unless it directly hurts the brand. Rovio has further stated that aggravated court cases against pirate might do more harm than good and hurt the brand’s image.
Rovio has said something that no one in the industry could think about. I think the best way to wage war on piracy is to make original products so good and affordable that people jump from pirated material to original material. Its smooch better to spend money on that rather than court cases. We believe Rovio is saying something that years ahead of its time. Google, Apple, Samsung are you listening?