I found this blog entry today discussing the reason why people use the internet to download TV shows illegally. I decided to share it because he does bring up some good points and I wanted to add my own being as I download TV shows myself.

First off, downloading TV shows IS illegal. There is no getting around that. The TV networks own the content and have the right to dictate when and how they provide this content to their viewers. When you download a show, free of its original commercials and from a source other than the network, you are breaking the law.

Now that we've established the fact that we are breaking the law, it's interesting to look at why people are breaking the law. The reasons Mike Davidson, the author, presents is in the case where the PVR, supplied by the cable company, simply does not work to its specification and misses recording a part of the show. So while he's paying for the service and the ability to record and watch the show, his provider is in fact screwing him over with not providing the full content. The only solution currently? Hop online and download a torrent for the show. He provides a nice analysis for whose fault this is but the most important fact is that even though he is legally entitled to the content since he paid for it, he still has to resort to illegal means to obtain it.

Now my reasoning for downloading shows is different from the author. My reason is that I refuse to pay the outragous costs associated with digital cable. There is no way I will have a $100+ a month bill for TV. NO WAY. Especially since cable TV is still packed with commercials. I have a digital antenna which I use to pick up my over the air broadcast stations (abc, nbc, cbs, fox, wb) for free. I watch the majority of my TV via this method for free. I do not skip the advertisments at all other than if I leave the room for some reason.

So that leaves me to download any show that I may have missed from the broadcast networks or any show that airs on cable that I didn't have access to. While the original author's download could be somewhat justified since he pays for all the content that he views regardless of the method he gets it, I think my downloading would be outright unjustified. But both of our reasons for downloading does not make one or the other less illegal.

The author of the original blog posting defines just who is hurt by downloading TV shows but that really doesn't bother me right now. What bothers me is that instead of viewing digital distribution as a potential way of expanding viewership, HBO and other networks are outright fighting digital distribution by infiltrating bittorrent networks to find out just who is downloading and alerting their ISPs. Perhaps these networks would find better results in providing their own means of digital distribution so they still control their content and how it's presented to their viewers.

The good thing is that we're slowing see more and more networks realizing the potential for digital distribution and are embracing it slowly. Itunes now provides TV shows to purchase and just today I saw that ABC (read Disney) will be providing TV shows to download, embedded with their commercials so they can still make money. Users will be able to skip to chapters but will not be allowed to fastforward content. Hey it's a start and I'm glad there's network executives actually trying to embrace technology instead of fight it.

Posted By: Jesse - http://sunk-my-scrabbleship.net
On April 10, 2006, 3:55 pm

I'm so torn on this. The biggest issue is that I'm TOTALLY UNAFFECTED BY ADVERTISING. I dont think I've seen a commercial for something and thought, "I should get that!" in... lets say... at least 10 years. And that is no joke. But at the same time I realize that I need to sit through that shit so shows make money and keep getting made. I dont know what the happy medium is. Honestly, for now, its just downloading it from BT. There are still so many people out there not a part of this technology that its not going to seriously dent their revenues, so for now I'm going to look the other way.

Posted By: Gerard
On April 10, 2006, 10:56 pm