What is Digg?162 Comments
- Cancerkitty, on 02/10/2009, -11/+63People are actively seeking out episodes Heroes? That makes no sense.
- BradCoupih, on 02/10/2009, -2/+50BitTorrents are as, or even more convenient than PVRs, with them you don't even need to skip the commercials, they're already removed!
- palmer, on 02/11/2009, -4/+42And AGAIN: You don't put "top" and "most" in the same title.
It's the "10 most pirated TV shows". Is that so hard? - rx8geek, on 02/11/2009, -0/+24Everytime i feel even slightly guilty about downloading tv shows on bitorrent i just go to www.hulu.com (someone should tell them two of the W's stand for WORLD WIDE!)
That giant middle finger the US studios raise with their geoblocking ***** just makes all my concern fade away! - chromerium, on 02/11/2009, -0/+22I pirate TV shows for several reasons. Some of the shows in this list are on my list, BSG, House, Fringe, HIMYM. I also grab all of the CSI shows, NCIS, Scrubs, The Mentalist, Dr Who (when it's running) and a few other shows like them.
Why do I pirate them when I could wait for them to be shown on Australian TV?
1) While I have an EyeTV, I and can schedule it to record the shows in HD as they are aired here, the networks here are complete bastards and tend to be very sloppy with their scheduling to the point where a show can start half an hour late or early. Even with generous leeway programmed into EyeTV, I can miss endings, etc. I think they do this on purpose.
2) Skipping ads are a chore, and I loathe them. They are always much louder than the show that I'm watching, even though tv networks SWEAR that they don't increase the volume (ok, so they use other audio trickery; whatever) it nearly makes me jump from my sofa every time an ad comes on and invariably there is a scuffle for the remote to turn it down, and then I forget to turn it up when the show starts and I miss some dialog and have to rewind ... gah. Ads.
3) Actual airing of shows in Australia can be spotty. Sometimes we can be a day or two behind the US, sometimes we can be 6 months or more behind. I don't enjoy waiting. I guess thats just a fact of modern life; people want instant gratification.
4) Australian networks regularly cut or edit shows in australia to meet some nebulous code of ethics, sometimes cutting out stuff that is actually fine but some bleeding heart "think of the children" catholic fundy will get up in arms and write a complaint.
There is no better alternative to bittorrent and a good RSS feed (EZTV *cough*). I want my shows, high quality, ad free, uncut, as they were aired in their original markets. If it's foreign, subtitle it, don't dub it.
Parcel it all up DRM free, feed it to me as a service and charge me $25 a month or whatever (and in Australia, it'd need to be unmetered quota to be really attractive), and I would happier than a pig in *****. Honestly. I might give shows to a few of my mates ... but it's a lot of effort and most of them would probably go for a service like this too.
IMHO, the companies making these shows are missing out on a huge market opportunity here. The first company that can get to market with a service that does the above well is going to be huge, imho. Sure, there are challenges. Exclusivity agreements, ISP network peering arrangements for unmetered quota downloads, stuff like that.
Meh, it's just the way I'd *like* it to go. Obviously, the reality is probably a lot different to that. Most of the time people wish things would be different just to suit themselves. Maybe this is an example of that. But am I alone here? - scarz99, on 02/11/2009, -0/+22Surprised, I for sure thought that The Office would be on there.
- Dumbledorito, on 02/10/2009, -1/+21Just because a show is being torrented a lot doesn't mean it's good. Look at the movies on "Mininova" right now. That Uwe Boll "Dungeon Siege" film is in the top 10 right now. I think that's mostly out of morbid curiosity at seeing a trainwreck as opposed to actually being entertained.
- d2002, on 02/11/2009, -1/+18Gossip Girl consistently make these lists but no one I talk to admits to watching it.
- bjorna, on 02/10/2009, -5/+19How I met your mother on only 8 place? that's awsful.
- TdiFFRob6876, on 02/11/2009, -0/+13This is exactly why I Torrent my TV shows. Commercials are too loud and inconvenient these days. Most aren't even entertaining like they used to be.
- inactive, on 02/11/2009, -0/+12Okay, Who told Bill O'Reilly about Digg?
- rx8geek, on 02/11/2009, -3/+14Because they persist with their geoblocking nonsense... and the internet is actually available in more countries than the USA now!
- nshady, on 02/11/2009, -0/+10What they don't tell you is that most of those Lost downloads actually happened in three years time.
- Dumbledorito, on 02/10/2009, -1/+10Piracy is also a reality. The producers of this material need to adapt, and slowly, they're doing so (i.e. offering shows with commercials on the network websites, selling downloads on iTunes, etc.).
However, the genie is out of the bottle. Suing viewers hasn't worked, so innovation is needed on the part of the networks.
Some friends of mine made a small budget film about role-playing games. They kept it off YouTube as long as they could, but eventually they gave up. It wasn't because it was costing them sales, however. They noticed that every time it was pirated, their DvD sales saw a bump. The lesson they learned was that if your product was going to be pirated, it was important to have the product for sale, as many are inspired to purchase a legit copy if they like what they see. - ByteGuerilla, on 02/11/2009, -1/+9He's Italian you insensitive clod.
- JunkStar2k, on 02/11/2009, -0/+8If i had access to hulu i most likely wouldnt use bittorrent at all...
- Platina, on 02/11/2009, -0/+8I would have gladly watched it on Hulu, but i´m from Norway:( Please make it work here too.
Without using some stupid program to pretend i´m from USA. - DrLeePhD, on 02/11/2009, -0/+8That's why we download top-gear in the states!
- Stavrosian, on 02/11/2009, -0/+7For fairness sake, I'll say that US viewers of foreign shows tend get the shaft from the online broadcasts just the same as the rest of us (BBC iPlayer being a notorious example). International licensing is such a mess right now, it needs to be dragged, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the 21st century.
- cocainxbluez, on 02/11/2009, -0/+6ranking (last week) show est. downloads
1 (1) Lost 1,640,000
2 (…) Heroes 1,560,000
3 (2) House M.D. 720,000
4 (3) 24 690,000
5 (4) Smallville 445,000
6 (5) Battlestar Galactica 410,000
7 (6) Fringe 390,000
8 (…) How I Met Your Mother 385,000
9 (…) The Big Bang Theory 375,000
10 (…) Gossip Girl 360,000 - Mynsc, on 02/11/2009, -0/+6I don't think that applies to TV Shows. If you're still downloading episodes in season 3 (Heroes's case) then it can't mean anything else except that you like the show. As entertaining as trainwrecks are, they become boring and annoying after 2, 3 hours.
- GregFD3S, on 02/11/2009, -3/+9How I Met Your Mother is definitely worth downloading illegally.
- Swivelstick, on 02/11/2009, -1/+7The banks already steal money from my accounts and now from my taxes, the media industry is stuck in the past and until they start utilizing available technology to provide me with a service that I would happily pay for I'll keep pirating.
- rx8geek, on 02/11/2009, -0/+6It needs to be dragged kicking and screaming out into the back yard and shot point blank in the head.
Ever since the internet, the notion of geographical restricions on licencing is totally moronic. IP holders will no doubt persist with the notion that they can control where and when their stuff gets out. Until they realise the cant their stuff will continue to show up on these top dowloaded lists! - skywake, on 02/11/2009, -0/+6Perhaps the people making movies, TV and music should catch up then. If people find it more convenient to download their material over the internet then they should support it and start moving their ads there. Its not like I am paying the makers of a TV show if I watch it on TV... they get paid buy advertisers via a guesstimation of the number of people watching....
and before you go "but people on the internet block ads". That's no different than me going to make a coffee during the adbreak (which I do, regularly). Perhaps they should put people who make coffee during the adbreaks in jail?
BTW, I still buy music and movies and very rarely pirate them (I preffer to pay the artists that I like). But you my friend are a *****. ***** the Australian TV broadcasters. There is no way I am going to wait 6months or more for a TV show to appear on Australian TV when I can download it the day after it is aired in the US. - brillyfresh, on 02/11/2009, -0/+6funny you mention that, since the top show on the list (Lost) is also freely available to watch on the ABC site
the only catches are the periodic commercials (the only ones really getting screwed by pirated copies of the show) and no availability outside the US, which is probably why there are so many downloading the torrent copies - megawiz, on 02/11/2009, -1/+6tbh, its the show that sparked my tv show pirating frenzy
- bytor4232, on 02/11/2009, -0/+5I would love to see Fringe get a second season. The hallmarks of great SciFi is mediocrity in the beginning of the series. If its this good now, what would a second season bring?
- Dumbledorito, on 02/10/2009, -2/+7You seem to think "adapt" means "acquiesce," and I assure you, that's not the case. The reason that I say "adapt" is because the ability to end piracy without killing the innovation that the internet provides isn't feasible.
And I'm not saying they have to "do what I want," what I am saying is that, like all businesses, they have to deal with realities on the ground. If someone started selling a device that let anyone enter a locked door, the legality of the act doesn't exempt businesses from finding a way to make that not be a problem. If people won't buy product in X form, then product X needs to change. If people will steal something, what can be done to make buying attractive? iTunes has been a response to that, as have several other online music stores.
Equating any kind of theft with rape and murder is ludicrous, by the way. You also are confusing how IP is consumed versus things like food. The models are not equivalent.
You are also quite ignorant of how commerce in the internet age has started to work. Take the webcomic, "Girl Genius." This used to be a print-only comic, available monthly only from stores willing to carry it. Eventually, the author decided to put it online for free, and then he'd compile it into a large trade paperback when it was complete and sell that online and through the book trade. The result? His sales more than quadrupled.
Nice business model, indeed. - Zippo, on 02/10/2009, -1/+6So are a lot of things. But when your alternatives are overpriced DVDs that take forever to come out and DRM-infested files, piracy is an inevitability.
Besides, in a lot of cases, piracy actually creates sales. A lot of people I know who download their weekly fix of a popular show also go out and buy the DVDs.
For me, half of the music I've discovered was through piracy. I can guarantee you the purchased music I *do* own would never be on my hard drive if I hadn't discovered the band through Napster, Audiogalaxy, or Bittorrent. Damned if I could afford music when I was in college. Now that I do have a job, I have a balance of purchased and pirated music/movies.
The fact of the matter is that it actually is a victimless crime. The Britney Spears and Tom Cruises of the world are still making metric *****-tons of money and new artists and actors are getting far more exposure. No one loses their life over the download of a few TV shows. - illuuu, on 02/11/2009, -1/+6Fringe is surprisingly good.
- FactorVIII, on 02/11/2009, -0/+5I can't believe the office isn't on there.
:( - auto98, on 02/11/2009, -0/+5FFS This list is on torrentfreak every week, and every week it gets put on here - if people want to see teh ***** thing they know where to look
- consie, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4Dugg for "some bleeding heart "think of the children" catholic fundy"...
Also, with the advent of unmetered download quotas, BitTorrent use in markets such as Australia, who get regularly shafted by networks, would absolutely explode. Whether it be the ISPs, networks, or entrepreneurs, someone will eventually capitalise on these opportunities and make a bloody fortune. - xxslants, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4I watch it! But I think that might be expected since I'm a girl >.<
- nshady, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4Doesn't stop the XKCD submissions.
- uberduger, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4That's rich, Mr I-Don't-Know-How-Capital-Letters-And-Full-Stops-Work.
- djtyrant, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4I pretty much have stopped BTing TV since I actually got a DVR and the existence of Hulu. It's interesting data none-the-less to see what TV shows are being downloaded. I got out of Lost a few seasons ago but apparently it's pretty good now.
- MrBogard, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4Because I want to watch it tonight!
- smoothmann, on 02/11/2009, -1/+5Smallville, Lost, Heroes, and Fringe FTW
gossip girl made the list? REALLY? - candafilm, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4I agree, Volume 4 is starting to shape up into a very interesting storyline. Lets hope they don't take it into some strange, confusing direction otherwise this will be my last season.
*S*
The Hiro storyline could be good but let's hope it's worth it because he's kind of boring without his powers. - Platina, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4It´s a new list, for a new week.
- inactive, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4Fringe had massive potential, but I have a feeling it will get shutdown fairly quickly. The eccentric prof was a good idea, but he ends up looking like a dufus more than a mad scientist. His son is completely two dimensional (basically for one liner comic relief). The plots are usually very good however.
- Crimsoneer, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4Then maybe they should make their shows available in the rest of the world...some of us don't like sitting around in Europe while the US gets to watch all the latest episodes of our favourite TV shows.
- GregoryHarbin, on 02/11/2009, -0/+3I do.
- inactive, on 02/11/2009, -0/+3Haven't the heroes realized no matter what they do to save our future they just ***** things up and make the end of the world happen in another way?
- SirBruce, on 02/11/2009, -0/+3But these aren't just the most, they're the TOP most!
- rnawky, on 02/11/2009, -4/+71. Go to The Pirate Bay
2. Browse TV shows and sort by seeds, decending
3. Post results on Digg
4. ?????????
5. PROFIT!
6. Repeat next week. - Platina, on 02/11/2009, -0/+3It was the same with The OC for me. Watched the first season, and then got bored in the second season. And quit watching. And if it is the same creator, maybe i should just watch the first season.
- CedarPark, on 02/11/2009, -0/+3Why can't you just get it through rabbit ears? I have a hi-def television, dish network, and I get my local hi-def through old school sat. It beams through the box, and Dish lets me DVR off of it.
BTW: Over the air is a much nicer picture than through the pipes. -
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