Pirate Bay users are generally not known to pay cash for the content they grab from the site. However, a recent promo for a bundle of Indie sci-fi games, books and videos raked in more than $5,000. So what's needed to make these people pay for content?

Over the past several years, numerous studies have shown that “pirates” are more engaged consumers than their non-sharing counterparts.

They not only consume more media, but also pay more for legal content. While the average visit to The Pirate Bay doesn’t cost anything, the above suggests that it’s a good venue for indie creators to advertise their work.

This is exactly what a group of indie sci-fi creators thought, so last weekend they teamed up with VODO to promote their work on The Pirate Bay. The end result is the “Otherworlds” sci-fi bundle, which includes a wide variety of content, such as books, games, music, comics and videos.

The Pirate Bay was kind enough to promote the bundle for nearly three days, replacing the site’s iconic logo with a prominent banner. Those who clicked on the banner could download a torrent with free sample content, but those who wanted more had to pay up.

Pay for content???



TorrentFreak reached out to VODO’s Jamie King, who organized the campaign, to learn more about the results. As expected, the Pirate Bay promotion generated a ton of traffic, over 100,000 visitors. Not all of this traffic resulted in sales, but overall results turned out quite well.

“The Pirate Bay helped us to make about $5,000 of sales from 375 customers. The simple immensity of the traffic really helped to move some bundles,” King tells us.

The “Otherworlds” bundle presents people with three payment options. A “pay what you want” option for five titles, a “beat the average” option with seven extra pieces of content, and a “beat the premium” option for the high rollers.

Interestingly, Pirate Bay users mostly picked the latter option. In total, 232 Pirate Bay visitors chose the most expensive “beat the premium” option, paying $18.11 on average. Another 72 visitors went for the cheapest option with an average payment of $1.78, and 67 people ended up in the middle with an $10.61 average.

Across all paying Pirate Bay visitors the average payment was $13.52. Interestingly enough, this is more than the average paid by people who came from other sites, or social media. That said, King notes that the ratio of incoming visitors to buying visitors was relatively low, about a tenth of that from other sites.

Those who have been reading TorrentFreak for a while may remember that VODO has been around for a few years already. Initially it started out by sharing torrents for free, and asking the public for donations. While some people were happy to donate, this model wasn’t very sustainable.

“To really create a success for a filmmaker, we’d have to generate literally millions of downloads. But it wasn’t do-able on a regular basis,” King tells us.

“So for us, putting up a ‘pay what you want’-wall has been a really simple and successful move. We still offer free sample torrents / mini-bundles, but basically, if you want the proper bundle, you have to choose to pay something,” he adds.

Conversions increased after the switch as more and more people started to contribute. The other advantage was that more creators were willing to join, as they were guaranteed a payment, while keeping control over how long their content remains available.

“Particularly, we can get much better content than if we were using torrents. The truth is most creators don’t have the rights to share their work freely, even if they wanted to,” King says.

In other words, if you want Pirate Bay users to contribute, the paywall system is a better way to do so than giving away everything for free in return for an optional donation. Perhaps this sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s how it works.

Finally, it’s worth noting that VODO has built-in an option for those who are not happy with the suggested payments. Beneath each offer is a “that’s too much for me” button where people can suggest the price they are willing to pay. Interestingly, hundreds of Pirate Bay users suggested their alternative price. In a week or so VODO plans to honor most of these offers, generating thousands of dollars in aftersales.

All in all the above shows that sites such as The Pirate Bay and EZTV, where it was promoted as well, can certainly help to finance indie creators. However, simply giving away content for free is not always the best option. As is often the case, people sometimes need a small incentive to contribute.

The “Otherworlds” bundle is still available today, and those who are interested can check out the offer here.