In news that certainly isn’t condoning the unprecedented levels of Breaking Bad online piracy, and thus shouldn’t particularly justify Australia’s Heisenberg-blue worthy level of addiction to snagging episodes before the internet becomes spoilergeddon, Breaking Bad showrunner Vince Gilligan has admitted that there’s two sides to the illegal downloading dilemma.
Speaking with the BBC, the destroyer of feelings, anxiety-coaxing mastermind Vince Gilligan opened up about how online piracy had swamped his beloved TV masterpiece. “I see that there are two sides to this coin. If I’m being honest I see that the illegal downloading led to a lot of people watching the series, becoming aware of the series who otherwise would not have been… I see that in some ways illegal downloading has helped us, certainly in terms of brand awareness, so that’s a good side,” Vince Gilligan said.
He certainly has a point. When TV shows (or high profile films around awards season) become gobbled up by the vacuum of the torrentshop, it generally sends media in to a concerned, bitter frenzy. Sure, the entertainment industry would be abundantly more well off if illegal downloading hadn’t become a mainstream staple, but bemoaning the (inevitable) supposedly abysmal state of the entertainment industry, all because impatient folk, or those without pay tv subscriptions, illegally download media—while forgetting the benefits of a broader audience—presents a cringe-worthy, one-dimensional debate.
