In that was totally out of context news…

David Petrarca, Game of Thrones, Big Love, and True Blood director, made headlines earlier for his apparently lax stance on piracy. Speaking at the Perth Writers Festival last weekend, Petrarca commented that piracy doesn’t matter to the overall success of the show and that shows like Game of Thrones survive on cultural buzz.

Apparently, Petrarca didn’t mean to imply that he supports piracy or that it helps generate buzz for TV shows and films.

“I am 100 per cent, completely and utterly against people illegally downloading anything…Nobody wins by illegally downloading content.” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

According to Petrarca, his comments were meant to imply that the piracy (and boy is there a lot of it) for shows like Game of Thrones was only a signifier of its popularity, not a cause of it.

HBO provided this statement on the matter to Wired:

Game of Thrones is sold worldwide, available legally on a large variety of viewing platforms and is one of HBO’s most popular series. With that kind of success comes a great amount of social media chatter, so can’t say we see an upside to illegal downloads.

Still, many feel as though HBO doesn’t quite do all they can to make their content available to all who want it.

“I think most people would be willing to pay for a show they love,” said Petrarca.

Yes. Agreed.