The chief executive of Rovio, the company behind the famous Angry Birds franchise, has voiced his opinion on piracy.
Mikael Hed says that piracy isn’t the worst thing in the world and that it can actually benefit the company in some ways. He mentions the poor attempts from the music industry against piracy and how Rovio can learn from them.
On top of apps being pirated, the company’s merchandise has also seen knock-offs floating around Asia. In a press conference earlier today, Hed said:
“We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products. There is 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. 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.
Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day”
