During this time of international uncertainty, I just wanted to say a few words about the potential effect on video producers, such as QuizBob, especially for those of us whose main or only source of income comes from the entertainment that we create. (With apologies in advance if this might seem flippant; of course the top priority has to be saving as many lives as possible but equally when we DO reach the light at the end of the tunnel, it'd also be desirable to have an economy that's weathered the storm as best it can!)



We all know by now how quickly this virus spreads. Various scientific reports suggest on average, a current estimate is that an infected person will go on to infect 2-3 others.

Now let's compare this to file sharing. (Again, sorry if this seems to trivialise the virus, but that's certainly not my intention so please hear me out!...) The first customer buys a video from a producer. Let's call them customer zero. Customer zero enjoys the video that they have paid for. Brilliant! Everyone is happy.

Customer zero then decides to share their file with someone else. It could be for many reasons: perhaps they're just keen to show someone else a video they have enjoyed. Perhaps they're exchanging it for another video - and if it's paid content, that instantly doubles the problem too, of course.

Customer zero may feel a small amount of guilt for doing this. After all, they've paid for the content so they presumably appreciate the value of it to a certain degree! So perhaps this is the only time that they share it, and they feel that this is ok. However, the person they share it with - the first non-buyer in the chain - probably won't feel anything like as much guilt, as to them it is a "free" download. They are more likely to share it further, and with more people. Perhaps with just one other, but probably more. You can see how, very quickly, customer zero has spread the "free" download unwittingly with a lot more than just the first non-buyer.

It's important to point out, of course, that many people along the chain wouldn't have bought the download; they only accept the file share because it's free to them. It's likely though that sooner or later, there's someone who WOULD have bought the download who then gets it for free.

And it only needs for there to be this one person in a chain who would have happily paid for content to receive it for free, and you've cut the producer's revenue by half. Two people in the chain, and the producer is only receiving a third of the money. And so on. If every customer did this, think about how little revenue the producer receives!



It's been a concern of mine since starting QuizBob that's only grown as it became a full-time business, but I know there's very little that can be done to stop it. With the current situation affecting so many people, I just felt that now is the time to speak up and appeal to people to think before sharing paid content.

The next few weeks and months are going to be tough, we know that. Many of us will be stuck indoors, bored and wanting entertainment, so temptation will grow to share files. Just as we're being asked to think of the consequences of not following the guidance on hand-washing, social distancing, self-isolating when necessary, and so on - please think of the consequences on ANY small business, be it video producer or whatever, if you begin or continue a chain of sharing content on which someone, somewhere, relies on the sales of to pay the bills.

This certainly isn't a plea for people to buy downloads that they don't want. If you weren't going to buy it, that's fine! Just please don't obtain it for free and continue to share it. Huge thanks too, of course, to all the amazing customers who have purchased shows and supported us so brilliantly. Without people purchasing the content, there wouldn't be the high-quality videos made.

But perhaps if you have enjoyed content from a video producer freely in the past, and you can afford to do so, you might consider downloading a paid video or two now?



Stay safe and healthy everyone.
QB