TVSquad

Consider me guilty of this.

I wouldn't watch many of the shows I do if not for bittorrent. And this happens for several reasons:

1) Ease. I do not want to schedule my time around the tv. In fact, I'm loathe to do so. The last thing I want to do is look at my watch and go "oh no, this show is on, I need to put my ass in the couch!" Sometimes I'm busy, other times I just don't feel like sitting around passively for an hour. Bittorrent allows me to watch TV shows at my leisure. And it allows me to use hardware I already own (unlike tivo) and I can avoid using Cablevision's shoddy, POS DVR equipment (with barely-functioning OS.)

2) I dislike cliffhangers. And I dislike waiting. I would never last through a season of, say, 24, if I had to wait 7 days between episodes. Bittorrent allows me to wait until 6 or 10 episodes have passed then watch them in one large burst.

3) I am not always around. If you miss one episode of a serial you're screwed. Cable will air it a few dozen times for you to catch it as you want, and I appreciate that, but network television does not do this. Bittorrent allows me to make sure that I am up to date, again, on hardware I already own.

4) I do not want Showtime. It's crap. But it has Dexter. I'll download Dexter towards the end of the season and go through it. I do feel a bit guilty about this one, as Showtime really does deserve the money, but I buy the DVDs.

5) Speaking of the DVDs, they take too long to come out. Again, this is a selfish complaint, but usually the DVDs come out very soon before the new season. By that point any twist has already been talked about so much that it's common knowledge. Hollywood has learned the benefits of ultra-quick DVD releases. TV needs to do the same.

6) New shows. Often a show will catch fire halfway through a season. I'll want to see if it's worth watching. But, by now, 8 episodes have aired and it's well into things. Bittorrent is the only way to catch up.


There you go, my reasons for downloading TV. Maybe you agree with them, or at least sympathize. Maybe you think I'm an evil, selfish leech. I don't much care.
I will take care of shows that I enjoy, though. If I download a season of a show I'll also purchase that season when it's released on DVD. I actually have far more DVDs than anything I've downloaded, as I mostly buy every show I download, but I don't download every show I buy.
My shelves are full of TV DVDs. Far, far more than movie DVDs.

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"They're just as apt to download a show to view on a laptop, desktop or iPod."

Most new DVD players can also play DivX files, so you can add "television" to that list.

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I used to burn the shows onto DVD.
Now I stream them via the xbox 360.

The few I watch alone I may watch on my monitor while in my room.

Otherwise, though, no way am I watching anywhere other than the HDTV.

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I'm guilty too, because it's either downloading a show or watching it two years later with crappy dubbing.

I prefer downloading the show one or two days after broadcast, and when dvds are available I buy them if I really like the show.

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I'm innocent of doing anything illegal. I'm also an avid downloader. I have a PVR in my PC and a netflix subscription. I pay for cable.
I have the means to watch this content already. I could take the 5 minutes to cut out the commercials before I watch. If it wasn't for Bittorrent, I'd do that.

I have every right to download any TV show I want because I've already paid for it, in some cases, I've paid twice.

It fair, it's legal, and I'll keep doing it. If they send me one of those copyright notices I'll contest it in court. I have a warchest just waiting for trial.

Get utorrent, peerguardian2 and your favorite torrent website and go nuts kids.

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A few bits of information:

I live in the UK.
I subscribe to digital satellite and get the full package of programmes, I also have multiple boxes and pay extra for them.
I buy many shows in dvd.
As evidenced by the above, I am not averse to paying for content.

The few UK facilities for watching online are windows only and/or crap.
Good Torrents are better than most official download servies (especially in the UK) and I can watch them on my TV.

I download shows via torrents.

I started with Third Watch since it was either aired way past midnight or mid-morning and edited to nothing.

I download Colbert because it's not on here.

I used to download the daily show because we used to only get the daily edition, now it's on daily I don't bother.

I download Letterman mainly still out of habit. Letterman has been on a multiple different stations and there have been long periods (many months) when it hasn't been on at all. It's aired now but weeks behind.

I download Conan since it's on at odd times, and is a few days behind, but I do it less frequently. It airs on CNBC and they're not losing anything by me not watching since their adverts are for their own channel and/or things that I am in no way the demographic (I am not a wealthy businessman).

I used to download Lost since it aired months behind over here and I was always spoiled. Now Sky One air it on the Sunday after the US broadcast I don't really bother.

I download 30 Rock since when it started there was no guarantee it would even air over here. As is Five have only just finished season 1 - which I watched. In the meantime I own 2 copies of the dvd's (don't ask why).

I downloaded most of the new shows this season to try them out before they were picked up by the various UK stations - mostly in case they weren't. Most of them I dropped straight away.

More and more of the shows I like are now airing on UK TV shortly after they air in the states and most of the time I'll wait a little bit. If I'm concerned about spoilers I do download because with the internet it's hard to avoid if you want to partake in any discussion etc.

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Funniest thing in that article is the term "nominal fee". I lmfao. As if $2 an episode could be considered nominal. Like I'm gonna pay $48 to watch a season of 24. I'd be perfectly willing to watch it online with commercials embedded into it, but they don't want to offer that. At least not to overseas viewers.

Maybe one day there'll be the chance to customize your TV channel package where you can choose a selection of channels from all over the world. Until that day comes, I'm not going to wait A WHOLE YEAR to see a show just because of what country I'm living in. I'd love to know how they think we can avoid the spoilers (tvsquad included) while we wait.

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When media companies realize a way to benefit from the reduced cost and GREATLY enhanced quality of BitTorrent downloaded XviD files, they will eliminate this problem.

Until then, I feel unapologetic and morally clean in downloading. I have TiVo, I watch on TV, I have a TV on DVD library bigger than probably 90% of other people's. If I had a Nielsen box, I would make a point to watch every program i possibly could that I liked.

So the only reason I have for ever downloading a TV show is one of three things. Either TiVo missed it (and I don't want to watch a version only viewable in iTunes that looks terrible at fullscreen), I want to see a particular moment / make a screengrab, or I want to watch it before the DVD comes out (and don't feel up to paying the full price of a DVD for something I can only watch in iTunes).

Hulu is a great step, but it can't touch ABC's amazing HD video website. The technology is almost there, just not quite yet. When it is, maybe I'll stop using Bittorrent (and finally be able to save my disk space).

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I won't pay $2.00 an episode, either. I suppose I have, last year I went on a Heroes binge and watched all I'd downloaded in one day, so I bought a few off iTunes.

That was greedy desperation. Other than that, no thanks. $2 an episode is more than the DVDs are (when on sale) and far, far more restricted. The quality often isn't as good, and the DRM kills me. I can't even burn what I download from iTunes, nor can I stream it. I'm instead forced to watch on my computer or my iPod.

No thanks. I'm not paying $2 to be forced to watch it on a small screen. Take off the DRM and cut the price to $.99 and we'll talk. But if I download for convenience I won't pay for less. I won't give you money and let you dictate the how and where I can watch.

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The things I usually download are BBC shows, because I don't get BBC America on non-digital cable in my area and that's also so far behind when they're broadcast there. Of course it's a kind of slow torture when "Dr. Who" goes 8 months without an episode... "Top Gear" is only slightly better in this regard. That reminds me, I should go find a torrent of the "Life on Mars" sequel...

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I don't believe streaming content is there yet - I hate buffering, and I get so pissed if the episode is streaming in segments and the next segment has an error, skips, or just is messed.
I buy my favorite shows on DVD when they come out, but until they do a HD recorded Divx file is perfectly fine, plus I can watch it where I please.

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The iPod analogy was awful. At a very basic level an iPod taken from a store costs Apple money, as they produced the iPod and now cannot sell it to someone else. It adds to Apple's production cost.
You do not have that with pirated television. It does not add to the cost of the production. That number is already fixed.

I'd question any talk of "lost sales" that might arise in this conversation as well. Someone might download a TV show they'd otherwise never watch nor buy. It is not a lost sale. It never would have been a sale. So content providers cannot simply say "our show was downloaded 1 million times, that's 1 million lost sales!"

I'd actually gamble that it's a net-gain. Yes, people downloaded your show. But now they're hooked. It will lead to more people, not less, watching it when it airs.
It may even lead to more DVD sales. I am not sure of that. Will not guess either way. But I'm sure that there's a very good conversion rate from downloading to DVD-buying when it comes to TV shows. Not music, not video games, but TV shows.

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