According to a few recent stories, including this write-up from Last100, some studios may be intentionally seeding content onto BitTorrent:
While the Motion Picture Association of America is uploading fake torrents of movies to discourage torrent use, mainstream television show producers are engaging in flirtatious trials with torrents as a viable new way to promote their programs and reach new audiences. Broadcasters aren’t posting their shows directly on PirateBay yet, but they are talking informally and giving copies of shows to a friend of a friend who is unaffiliated with the company to make a torrent. The Weeds show producer Jenji Kohan hinted at both her approval of the leaks and the reasons behind them […]
Unlike, music and movies which have historically relied on the sale of physical media, most television shows are disposable and don’t end up in syndication or as DVDs on our shelves. So, it’s a reasonable strategy to give away episodes as a means to draw in new viewers – whether the giving be done on a website or via BitTorrent. Those services have made a viewer out of me — Torrents for Dexter led to a Showtime subscription (good for them and Comcast) and catching up with torrents of Traveler led me to watch the show real-time with commercials. (Though the mini-series non-finale was BS, and I want all my time back.) Not to mention, if you’ve been keeping up with ZNF lately you know, I’m now a Burn Notice fan thanks to web-streaming via Hulu and awaiting Season 2 – which I’ll watch live.
It would be nice to know which broadcasters are “okay” with torrents. I stopped downloading shows a while back when by ISP sent me an email that they recieved a notice from a broadcaster that said I was downloading episodes of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”…
I would too. Though these guys could make more money and skip those notices if they were more efficient embracing new services like Unbox and Hulu. Most people would prefer a legit (plus simple and fairly priced) method to get content.
For example, I purchased several episodes of Weeds at $2 a pop to get caught up. I would have done the same with Dexter, but iTunes didn’t offer any of Season 2 – which sent me to BitTorrent to get caught up before I started watching live on television.
I must be the only one who fines the insane, perverseness of this. Imagine:
Sony corporate executives from Japan bring a $10,000.00 prototype flat screen into a local pawn shop to see what they’ll get for it.
Or
GM president Bob Lutz pimping the 2009 Cadillac at the local swap meet.
By using us freedom fighter’s own tools they are acknowledging we are right. It reminds me of when Darth Vader saved Luke by throwing the Emperor down the exhaust shaft of the Death Star.