This article on Lifehacker.com lists a bunch of different ways to catch various TV episodes online for free. Since the name of the site involves the word "hacker", one can assume that some of these methods may not be entirely legal. Repeat at your own risk.
As someone who doesn't own any kind of recording device for the TV but has a great computer monitor, I tend to go to the network websites to catch episodes of certain shows. I'd hate to miss a week of Heroes or Bionic Woman and I'm glad the networks offer a chance to watch missed episodes online at one's leisure with minimal commercial interruption.
Of course, there are some cases of television programs that are on channels that aren't offered (for example, my cable company doesn't offer BBC America. Jerks) and aren't available online. If that is the case with you, I recommend doing a Google search on the word "torrent'. But you didn't hear that from me.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-16-2008 @ 10:33AM
onradiofreebg said...
enjoy http://on-radio.free.bg
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10-10-2007 @ 4:05PM
Jamie said...
BE VERY CAREFUL with the program you will find when googling TORRENT (since it is not name above, I won't name it here). A friend (honest, it wasn't me!) got a letter from both NBC and her ISP siting copyright infringement for doing this. They threatened to shut her internet off unless she deleted the files and stopped doing it. I wouldn't recommend this. It's coming to be like Napster used to be back when MP3s used to be easier to find and free.
Just wanted to share.
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10-11-2007 @ 12:33PM
Steverino said...
Shame, shame on the author for falling into the mainstream media trap and automatically assuming anything 'hacker' related 'may not be entirely legal'.
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10-10-2007 @ 7:21PM
Eric said...
I myself have received an email from my isp for copy-right infringement of Quake 4 (Video game) I didn't know NBC cared if you downloaded shows? Does Safe Peer an Azureus Plug In help with not getting dinged with copy-right infringement. Any information would be appreciated.
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10-10-2007 @ 7:33PM
Joey Geraci said...
You are not in any danger unless you are sharing a large number of files. If you are just downloading, and not sharing much (or any) of what you are downloading, your chances of getting a letter are nil.
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10-10-2007 @ 8:08PM
budder said...
Just as an FYI, lifehacker has nothing to do with (computer) hacking. It's a site based on providing tricks for making life more user-friendly. Also, I think that would be a great tagline for the site...
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10-11-2007 @ 1:40AM
Bill said...
Downloading shows from torrents is considered copyright infringement. You're not likely to end up being sued or anything, but technically there is no completely safe way to do so. Even with various technologies applied to hide your presence, the nature of the protocol requires you to advertise your IP address to other computers who may have parts of the file. Your IP address identifies you on the internet, so it can be traced to you. The most likely result of a copyright holder finding you downloading their stuff via torrent seems to be a DMCA takedown notice (those emails you guys mentioned above).
And yes, NBC absolutely cares if you download their shows. They pay a lot of money to put those shows on the air, and they make their money from advertisements. If advertisers think people are downloading them instead of watching them on TV, they won't pay for the advertising, and then the show gets cancelled. Most of the networks are pretty good about putting shows on their websites for streaming now, so that's the best place to go.
I certainly wouldn't blame someone for downloading an episode that isn't offered legally if they missed it and don't want to fall behind, but technically speaking, it's copyright infringement, so proceed at your own risk.
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10-11-2007 @ 9:24AM
Galley said...
Fox forced me to become a pirate last year when they were streaming unaired episodes of "Vanished", but only on a PC.
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10-14-2007 @ 11:27PM
alex said...
At this point you can stream most anything without bothering with the network players crappy setups, so I'm not sure why any one would bother with torrents or the official sites
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