Lost and desperate, we're turning to piracy February 12, 2006
Downloading popular TV programs from the internet is on the rise. Michelle Griffin reports.
MORE than 2 million people tuned in to the return of Desperate Housewives last Monday night. But not 35-year-old Melbourne web designer Tony and his wife. Keen fans of the US drama's first series, they've already downloaded the first six episodes of the second series from the internet.
Tony is a TV network's worst nightmare: a viewer who has bypassed the broadcaster altogether. He's also watched all the latest episodes of Lost and Prison Break. "We do not watch free-to-air any more," says Tony. "We only turn on the TV to watch the news."
He's not alone: Australia is the second-biggest market for pirated TV shows in the world, second only to Britain, according to British internet consultancy Envisional. Its 2005 report claimed that television downloading had more than doubled in the previous 12 months, and that Australians were responsible for 15.5 per cent of all TV downloads.
With more than 1 million Australian homes signing up for broadband internet services last year, the numbers of people able to download TV will grow rapidly.
Tony doesn't want his last name printed because he could be sued for infringing copyright by the local TV networks that license these shows. As yet, the networks have not tried to crack down on TV show piracy, but in the US the Motion Picture Association of America has recently shut down one popular file-swapping site, LokiTorrent, and seized information on the people who used it.
"I'm aware that it's a risk," says Tony, who started downloading programs a year ago and has since shown several friends how to do it. "But as crimes go, it's a rather minor one."
Television programs, he says, are fair game. "I've never downloaded a movie," he says. "Movies I'll pay and see. TV I watch for free anyway."
Research conducted by Sydney-based internet consultant and academic Mark Pesce suggests that TV downloading is widespread among Australian men aged 18 to 25 — and that they regularly share homemade DVDs with their friends. Pesce freely admits he does it himself. "I'm a big fan of Battlestar Galactica, and Ten is something like 15 episodes behind," he says.
Copies of most US and British programs are up on the net within hours of broadcast — and sometimes even before they air. Downloading TV through file-swapping programs such as BitTorrent and eDonkey is a fiddly process, but any home computer with a broadband connection can download a high-resolution copy of a TV show within a couple of hours.
Mr Pesce says downloading pirate TV is still difficult enough to deter internet novices, but this will change as soon as someone launches a user-friendly program. "It's like music downloading before iTunes was launched," he says.
Envisional's list of the most popular pirate TV downloads last year could give Channel Seven serious pause: their latest seasons of 24, Lost and Desperate Housewives are all in the top 10. And only two weeks ago, Desperate Housewives was the sixth most downloaded show in the world, according to US internet monitors Big Champagne.
But Simon Francis, Seven's director of corporate development, says he is not concerned about the impact of downloading on the jewels in their schedule. "The vast majority watch television … the ratings for the shows show no erosion."
Nevertheless, Seven may eventually offer TV episode downloads on its new web portal yahoo7. "Downloads of episodes are high on the agenda," Mr Francis says. American broadcaster ABC already offers $US1.99 ($A2.70) downloads of Lost and Desperate Housewives for Apple iTunes in the US. Mr Francis says Seven must sort out several issues before they can consider downloading programs.
SBS has already podcast the John Safran chat show Speaking in Tongues and plans to offer several other shows as downloads this year.
Channel Ten's new media team is also considering internet TV. "That may include offering entire episodes," says general manager of network programming David Mott. "But the business model is still evolving."
Downloads could make money for the broadcasters, says Julie Flynn, chief executive of broadcast industry association Free TV Australia. "The growing demand for downloads of popular television programs presents an opportunity for broadcasters to access new revenue streams to supplement the strengths of free-to-air television," she says.
But copyright lawyer Alix Malik doesn't think the networks are responding fast enough to the demand for download TV. "The commercial (stations) should be doing it now. Their overseas counterparts are already doing it," he says.
For the past six months, Mr Malik has been monitoring Australian chat sites where people swap information on TV downloads. He says he has seen a dramatic spike in interest in the past few months. "People on the chat sites were very frustrated by the end-of-ratings period," he says. "They don't want to wait four months."
As part of his PhD, Mr Malik identified two kinds of TV shows popular with Australian downloaders: the high-rating "event television" serials; and the cult shows such as Battlestar Galactica and West Wing. He says the tech-savvy fan base for these shows was not content to follow these programs across the late-night schedule.
"I don't see a negative impact on Desperate Housewives and Lost," says Mr Malik.
"Maybe everyone who downloaded over summer told people about it and kept the word of mouth coming. Downloading can be a form of viral marketing. The real effect is on the audience for cult programs. It will be interesting to see how ABC goes with The West Wing — we're getting shows that are years old; that's an awful long time to wait."
Ten's David Mott is not convinced that pirate TV viewers create buzz for shows.
Ten's staple The Simpsons is also a popular download.
"We don't condone piracy and we support the US networks' efforts to prevent it," says Mr Mott.
"And while there is some anecdotal evidence that downloaders help generate buzz before a program launches, I don't think you can make a definitive call on that."
TOP 10 pirated shows SHOW (number of users)
Without A Trace 574,884 CSI 561,240 NCIS 555,372 The Daily Show 554,476 Grey's Anatomy 549,622 Desperate Housewives 547,902 Smallville 538,640 American Idol 538,546 My Name Is Earl 538,546 Family Guy 537,957
(downloaded around the world, week ended January 31, 2006)
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist
Think B4 u make stereotypes makes life easier! Junior eBlaher
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Software piracy is rampant! and billions are lost in profit by large corporations, can you suggest methods to curb piracy, like punishemnt or relaxed rules??
Software piracy is rampant! and billions are lost in profit by large corporations...
oh poor diddums corporations...that's the beauty of the free market...the big corporations will have to think of another way to get their gazillions of $$
Quoted from thinktank
can you suggest methods to curb piracy, like punishemnt or relaxed rules??
I couldn't be bothered giving it a moment's thought...there are so many real problems facing the world that I could care less about this...it's not like much money is being lost by the creative people involved in the production of these shows being pirated...they get a teeny % to begin with.
Cheers, BSquared There's more to politics than left and right...find out where you sit on the polical compass by taking the world's smallest political quiz at http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html
Im sure that if they didnt screw us around with shows being taken off at the drop of a hat, or mid season, some never to return, and actually showed them in a timely fashion then people wouldnt feel the need to download them.
As it is now, if iTunes allowed people from outside the US to purchase the eps for $1.99US there would be a couple of shows I would happily pay to see now, instead of in a years (or more) time.
Tony is a TV network's worst nightmare: a viewer who has bypassed the broadcaster altogether.
Sh1t maybe they should start showing what people want to watch! The music industry lost billions and will never recover, and you know what, it deserved to. $30 for a CD and it's not like the people who created the music or anyone involved in the albums benefitted a heap, 30 a pop just so the head of sony could go out and buy a new helicopter every few days. TV studios are catching on, BSG and other SciFi channel (sci fi shows are the most downloaded since they have a technically savvy, intellectual audience) shows are available 24 hours after first run, survivor is available to download, all the big movies stars were involved in the last CES realising like the music industry that people would rather not pay $15 bucks for a ticket and get out there checkbook for a bucket of popcorn and a jug of coke.
TV stations want to stop people downloading and have them tune in, broadcast international shows as close as possible to debut and stop taking shows off for sport, sport aand more sport. Not much chance of that happenning with dumb @rse McEd in charge at nein
Seriously how many people would pay for foxtel if you could watch the lastest Galactica, House, etc the same week as is airs in the US rather than having 50 channels filled with absolute junk: TV shows from the 70's, C grade movies that you can get from the Big W bargan barrel for $2.95
"To the rational mind, nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained. " The Doctor
Im sure that if they didnt screw us around with shows being taken off at the drop of a hat, or mid season, some never to return, and actually showed them in a timely fashion then people wouldnt feel the need to download them.
I agree...when television stations realise what people want to watch instead of shifting programs around or taking shows off midstream people wouldn't bother to download. Some US shows never even make it to Australian screens so where's the harm in it? Like someone else said there are bigger problems in the world than worrying about people dowloading a few TV shows. The majority of people are still going to watch them on TV anyway.
Yesterday while on the stairs, I saw a Man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today...I wish that He would go away!!
Let's face facts, with the advent of VIDEO cassette recorders, all those decades ago, most of us have been pirates since then. I know i have. I still have shows on video that i recorded 20 years ago. (Although they have deteriorated)
Is there much difference between recording a show on video then watching it again six months later. If i download a TV show from the internet, i just get to watch it six months earlier, i'll still probably watch it when it's on TV anyway so no-one is losing out.
The TV station will still get their advertising revenue and i will still change the channel when the ads come on.
If i like the show enough, i may even buy the box-set DVD's. That's not unprecedented.
All will be well when video-on-demand comes to fruition. Whatever decade that happens.
I agree...when television stations realise what people want to watch instead of shifting programs around or taking shows off midstream people wouldn't bother to download.
Right on. Put something vaguely watchable on for God's sake! Everything is made so cheaply these days. And show it with a bit of consistency. Less bloody ads would help too. Everyone should contact the networks and tell them how hopeless they are. Clearly they need their mistakes pointed out to them.
I reckon the next logies are going to be a farce. There's hardly any Australian content worthy of any sort of award.
[face=Geneva][/face][color=blue][/color]Ant farms- cruel and barbaric, or not that bad really?
Let's face facts, with the advent of VIDEO cassette recorders, all those decades ago, most of us have been pirates since then. I know i have. I still have shows on video that i recorded 20 years ago. (Although they have deteriorated)
Is there much difference between recording a show on video then watching it again six months later. If i download a TV show from the internet, i just get to watch it six months earlier, i'll still probably watch it when it's on TV anyway so no-one is losing out.
The TV station will still get their advertising revenue and i will still change the channel when the ads come on.
If i like the show enough, i may even buy the box-set DVD's. That's not unprecedented.
All will be well when video-on-demand comes to fruition. Whatever decade that happens.
Exactly! What's the difference between video recording something and downloading. e still fast forward through all the ads and we can watch at our leisure.
Yesterday while on the stairs, I saw a Man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today...I wish that He would go away!!
If TV stations woulds just let the shows run instead of cutting them half way *cough*VeronicaMars*cough* then we wouldn't have to download. Although, we'd still be behind anyway.
On a SV note, I'm glad that Smallville is one of the most heavily downloaded shows.
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