Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio, "piracy is not so bad, it increases our audience"

Earlier this month, the great Julio Iglesias stated that he did not mind pirating because this will democratize access to their music, a very interesting comment which showed a large open-mindedness and helped to dispel the demonization that in some sectors industry, it makes users. Another share of industry has been added to this vision open is Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio (the social gaming company, for example, proposed lowering our productivity with Angry Birds ) also commented that piracy has helped to increase the scope of its audience helping many more people know about Angry Birds.

Rovio has a large reef with Angry Birds that goes far beyond the mere application (available on social networks in the Chrome Web Store or mobile platforms) but have also capitalize on the brand image to launch an Angry Birds merchandising line. For the creators of Angry Birds, the "encounters" with the world of piracy are more related to merchandising applications, but still have clear models that do not want to follow:

We have some problems with piracy, not only applications but also have them in consumer products. There are tons of merchandise floating around, especially in Asia, has not officially licensed products. We could learn much from the music industry and its terrible ways to fight piracy

According to Hed said, taking the so-called "pirates" to the courts is useless unless it is found that the products sold have a negative impact on the brand Angry Birds or their fans. If you are not in such cases, Rovio believes it can be beneficial and help promote your brand:

Piracy in the end may turn out not so bad: it can generate more business. [...] A copy of the music industry one thing, instead of treating users as such, we decided to treat them as fans and at the end of the day, we talked about the number of fans we have. If we lose fans, our business does not work and if the number of fans increases, our business will grow

Rovio has a vision that Angry Birds can become a great promotional channel content and user loyalty because there are people who spend more time playing Angry Birds than watching TV, so want to explore the possibility of alliances and agreements with the music industry for their games can serve as a platform for music distribution, since they have an interesting fan base.

I think she is right to Hed in their arguments, I hope many more will join the industry relating to defend this position.

Picture: Techno-Byte