Comments on: I Steal Television Shows Because I Have To

By: bob

bob — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:17:13 +0000

in my opinion if you buy a dvd and decide to share it with othere you ar intitled concidering you baught it it should be your to do what you wish . olso if anyone that steals films has half a brain thay would use an ip blocker such as peer guardian whitch can be downloaded from pheonix labs . unfortinatly it is not compatablr with vista but in that case there is many good ip blockers you can buy from around 50 pound a smal price to pay to keep your right to privacy

By: television » Blog Archive » I Steal Television Shows Because I Have To

television » Blog Archive » I Steal Television Shows Because I Have To — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:42:35 +0000

[…] read more | digg story […]

By: Phil Paonessa

Phil Paonessa — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:10:50 +0000

Does anyone know of a site where i can get the HBO series “Dream On”, seasons 3-6? They made seasons 1 & 2 and then stopped making more but I understand that the show still runs in the UK..

By: Jonas

Jonas — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:51:20 +0000

A quick addendum: I just read Rob’s comment on the quality of German overdubbing. While it is better than, e.g., Spanish overdubbing – I still believe the Spanish overdubbing voice actor community consists of around 11 people – once you’ve watched a show in its original you don’t want the copy. For me it’s like trying to get a replacement high by huffing paint.

And an addendum to the ease of things: I set my Stage6 player to automatically download the episodes once they finish streaming. That way I can close and de-clog Firefox and watch the shows whenever I want. It’s basically homemade TiVo.

By: Jonas

Jonas — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:46:38 +0000

I steal television because there is a huge gap in quality between original audio and dubbed-over (I live in one of the countries with target audiences big enough to make overdubbing worth it).
A few shows you cannot watch at all because the TV channels’ selection of US or British shows to bring over here follows TV target demographics which seem to love America’s Next Top Model, American Idol and so forth.

I do not feel very bad about it, to be honest. I know it is the digital equivalent of stealing cable. But it is oh so very easy to do.
Furthermore, I do not feel bad for the broadcasting stations since a) they often have recent episodes on their websites anyway (which, due to regional limitations, I cannot watch) and b) I would not be good for any ad revenue because most of the advertised products are not sold here.

Prosecution of filesharers has started but is very slow. Watching TV on the internet via streaming video and linksites galore makes this even easier to circumvent – if video-hosting sites do not know what is hosted on their own servers, I assume they also have a hard time passing on visitor’s info to prosecutors.

American and Canadian viewers have tons of choices when it comes to watching TV shows. You have TiVo, Netflix, …
We don’t.
This does of course not give us the right to just pirate our way into your level of comfort. But instead of waiting years for the DVD to come out (desperately hoping that the less popular but infinitely better niche shows even make the cut), I’m stealing TV.

By: well, if you ask me … » Blog Archive » Mike Davidson: I Steal Television Shows Because I Have To

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 01:52:17 +0000

[…] As a TiVO lover and a web developer, I had to laugh at this let me just say that this recorder obeys orders about as reliably as Internet Explorer renders CSS. That is to say, sporadically, sloppily, and at times, without reason.Mike Davidson: I Steal Television Shows Because I Have To […]

By: Jeroen Mulder

Jeroen Mulder — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

As a resident of The Netherlands, it isn’t only technology forcing me to steal shows. I mean, what do they expect when they air the first 13 episodes of Lost season 1, then stop. Just, stop for six months. They have plenty of reasons for doing so, but they are all irrelevant for me.

The US is lucky with their TiVo’s and gimmicks. Digital TV has barely broken through here. I have a 32″ HDTV and I refuse to watch poor quality analog signal on it when I can have 720p at any single time I want. So, not only do I steal TV, I do it frequently. About five shows a week.

By: Su

Su — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It is possible to grab a torrent without sharing, but it’s unpleasant. It can severely slow your own download. Considering the amount of effort being put into this, I doubt they’d add significant extra time like this.
There are actually a couple of clients which are being increasingly banned by trackers because they have been specifically built to allow leeching, by lying to other clients about what they have, or ignoring convenient bits of the protocol, etc.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I completely agree with your points. I would say that this problem is only going to increase, especially since the storylines of tv shows are becoming much longer and complex. If a few years ago, you missed one week’s episode of Friends or Seinfeld, it wasn’t that big a deal, as the storylines all wrapup in each episode. But looking at the format of most shows out there now, like Sopranos, 24, Prison Break, Lost, etc, it’s crucial that you see that episode before the next new one.

FX does a good job with this. For their big shows, like The Shield, Thief, etc, the rerun the episode three or four times throughout the week, so if you miss it the first time, you can still catch it before next week…

By: Shaun

Shaun — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Would the answer be to provide all of their content on Demand? I know HBO has on demand, but do they have it in HD on Demand? In Canada we don’t have it in HD on demand anyway.

Missed (or not available ) shows is the only reason I’ve downloaded them online — outside of BitTorrent mind you.

I really think this is step #1 for these companies. Now that there are offering shows online via iTunes, it’s only natural that they will begin to protect this content as much as possible.

Personally I find it pathetic that I’d have to pay to download “Lost” for example, if I already pay for cable and can see it for what I’ve ALREADY paid.

The answer is everything on-demand, available right after it airs.

By: web

web — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I feel your pain. I have the exact same service DVR and PROBLEM and I am on the East Coast — Boston — so suffice to say this is a national problem.

I would gladly pay for the ability to watch the shows I want to on my schedule (aka downloading them) — oh wait I do pay for it — but tell me again why I can’t watch them. Oh yeah “equipment and network problems” ..

Some day these cable companies will get their asses in gear and they will reap the benefits — until then — I’ll be torrent’ing my ass off.

Secrest Out!

By: Rian Murnen

Rian Murnen — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Networks Rush to Offer Shows Online

Greg Steiner, 36, of Los Angeles downloads episodes as a backup for when his TiVo malfunctions. He appreciates the convenience, but would love a larger selection.

Your not the only user feeling the pain. I would offer that the solution is going to come from the content producers (networks and studios) not the cable providers or hardware / software manufacturers.

By: Jamie Huskisson

Jamie Huskisson — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sorry for the ‘double comment’ but another great example of my point is the movie industry. They wouldn’t have to file lawsuits if they made movies available everywhere in the same time period. A week or two delay we don’t mind… but when it’s something ridiculous like 6 months (or up to 18 months for a few movies…) between the time it comes from America to the UK then it just gets ridiculous.

Matrix: the final installment was available everywhere within a 24 hour period and not only made history for distribution but made history with its sales. I know alot of movie downloaders and I don’t know a single person who downloaded the Matrix 3… not because they couldn’t, but because it was available to them when it was available to their friends around the world.

I realise that distribution across the globe is a hard task and there are alot of factors that come into it, but come on… putting it on the internet isn’t a hard thing :)

By: Nate Cavanaugh

Nate Cavanaugh — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I agree with you about the whole article (except the PVR thing. Here in LA, the PVR worked great).

About the whole “HBO downloads torrents”, I thought I would clarify this. There are companies that actually mine this data for the IP holders (MPAA, RIAA, etc), and keep INSANELY large databases full of user information of different people who are using the various backbones to transmit copyrighted material. They track bit torrent, limewire, the Morpheus networks, etc.

How they do this exactly, I am not sure, but I know for a fact that they do it, because I have a standing job offer as a PHP developer at one of these places, as well as a friend who works there.

They pass on this information to the various companies that hire them out, and that is how they get the info to start suing folks.

I can send you the name of the company via email, but I’d rather it not get out. They are really hush hush about stuff…

By: PanMan

PanMan — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

As Jeroen, #2, said, here in the Netherlands there are even other reasons, such as the fact that they stopped airing Lost, twice. And the fact that TiVo is NOT available here. And most shows, when aired, are aired a couple of years late. (altho one could argue you’d just have to wait). And some great shows aren’t aired at all here.
But, to put things in perspective: Downloading here isn’t illegal, due to some old law allowing home copy’s. Uploading is forbidden tho, and since most P2P involves uploading, many downloaders do illegal things, downloading from, for example, usenet, isn’t illegal here.
Oh, and we don’t have ANY pay-per-view program yet, altho it is comming soon, I guess.

On a side note: What microsoft OS does your PVR run? Is it a windows media center box? Or is it some strange embed form? Just wondering.