Despite Global Release, Breaking Bad Heavily Pirated 443
tlhIngan writes "One reason that many people pirate TV shows is 'it's not available in my country until months after it airs.' Which is why the second episode of Breaking Bad's final season was aired globally within a few hours of each other yesterday evening. Despite this, many users still decided to download it than watch it when it aired locally. Australia users we the top, perhaps because it was on FoxTel. This was followed by U.S. and Canada (who obviously got to see it when it aired), and the UK where Netflix had it within hours of the U.S. premier. Fifth on the list was the Netherlands, where it had aired hours before the U.S. premier on a public channel. It's obvious that despite the global release, the show was headed to top its previous highs in number of downloads. Could this spell the doom to future global releases, since the evidence is people just pirate them anyways?"
(shrug) (Score:1, Interesting)
No commercials. here it shows on amc. Who pops in every 8 minutes to tell us about the breaking bad premier. other channels i don't watch. other crap i'll never want to see. useless products. and more ads for breaking bad!
I started to watch and the above annoyed the fuck out of me... Shut the set off and did something else. And pirated that shit an hour later.
So much better experience.
I paid for cable, they got their money. But they want more! Fuck them and their ads.
I'm so sick of ads. Everywhere.
What is this nonsense? (Score:0, Interesting)
This makes it on Slashdot now?
The language in the summary is so bad it isn't even clear what's being said. There was no "second episode" aired.
Just the first episode of the second half of the season.
This plus all the other bits of misinformation and bad grammar and one wonders who was friends with who to get this /.'d.
We all know that people submit perfectly legit articles all the time only to have them rejected then posted later by someone else who happened to be friends with the editors on this site.
This is horseshit.
Expectation... (Score:4, Interesting)
Many people are simply in the habit of torrenting shows, and often have rss feeds or similar automation set up to grab them automatically. I personally wasn't aware that breaking bad was airing here, nor did i know when the rest of the season was due to start. I only found out about it when it popped up in the RSS feed, by which time it had already been downloaded via torrent.
If i had known it was on tv i may well have watched it there (or recorded it for later viewing), but i certainly wouldn't watch it via a drm encumbered streaming service.
Re:Too Many Adverts? (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember once upon a time when movies had no ads before the movie itself, just trailers (which I guess could be a form of advertisement). I'll never forget the first time I walked in and started seeing ads for crap other than yet to come out movies and being highly angered.
I find it ironic that I'm a highly capable of techno geek who's capable of doing lots of fun things with technology, but I maintain only tacit involvement for most things just due to the amount of marketing, whether it's too me directly, or to companies that want to take my information to try and figure out how to better market at me. I highly resent attempts at manipulation.
I get confused looks when I pay for most things in cash, and no, I honestly don't want your loyalty rewards program. My personal information is worth alot more to me than the pittance it'll save me (looking at you Best Buy and Gamestop)
What is this TV you speak of? (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if they did I can't just imagine sit at TV on a specific date/time. This is not how it works now, I will watch it when/if I have time not when they think I should watch it.
I also like to watch multiple episodes at a time, and the legal way of me doing this (can't use hulu or netflix where I live) is ordering box set via amazon which costs 45 pounds for seasons 1-4.
No thanks, make it 10 pounds and you got a deal since it's just piece of plastic with printed out papers.
The only advantage I see in a dvd box set is that audio levels and quality is consistent across all the seasons/episodes but even this can be a non issue if you take your time searching right torrents.
Plus it will take 1 week for the DVDs to get here and would require me to go to the post office, wait in line, get back home to finally view it.
Now lets compare the other alternative that I have:
Open up the bay, type in breaking bad season, get the one with most seeds/ok quality and press magic download button. 1 hour later I have what I needed without all the annoyances.
So guess which route will I or anyone sane would choose?
Here's why I downloaded ("pirated") it (Score:5, Interesting)
I usually don't respond to the threads on /. about piracy; I don't see any point in debating it. I'm pretty much going to do it regardless until they hand over full control of me being able to do what I want with something after I have purchased it. I believe many others out there have the same reasons, so I decided I would post them.
1. It's easy. I turn on the computer, surf over to The Pirate Bay, search for what I want, click on the magnet link and a few minutes later I have it.
2. Freedom. I can then do whatever I want with the file. Put it on my laptop and take it with me, watch it on my 27" monitor, stream it to a TV or run it from a computer connected to TV via HDMI. I can give it to a friend on a USB stick. Save it on my hard drive for later. Pause it in the middle to do something else and resume later.
3. Cost. Buying a new television every few years is expensive. I don't know about you, but I want to retire early. I move around a lot because of work and having a television with me is not an option. Also, in my country of Norway, we have to pay a TV licence fee of around 500 dollars a year if we have one. I hate Norwegian television, it's boring and ethnocentric. The rest of the world seems to be in a television series renaissance, but here it's the same boring shit that no one outside of this small and insignificant country cares about. Mostly about "Big Brother" type of programming and gatherings of celebrities.
4. Advertising and commercials. I don't have to fucking watch them when I download something. Period.
5. The Man. I'm just trying to make my way in this world and I'm sick of people better off than me trying to get their hands in my pockets. I don't want theirs, I just want mine. And to keep it. Knowing that they didn't get it this time gives me pleasure and satisfaction. I will ultimately buy the stuff I really like because I support the artists/authors. I have over 1000 music CDs in storage I've bought since my first CD player in 1993. Now, I try to buy FLAC or 320 kbps MP3s directly from the bands. I have over 400 games on Steam, many from Indy publishers, most I haven't even played. Especially since I gave up computer games as my new year's resolution 2013. But I still buy them because I support what they do, and I like that I will always have them on Steam. Movies? They release them on DVD, then Blue Ray, then a special edition, then an uncut with added scenes, then 20 years later with lost fucking footage. This doesn't make me feel like they give a shit about me getting what I am paying for. Sure, I could forgo films and television series completely, but there's that social aspect of being a part of conversations at work and at gatherings that I would miss out on. I already don't give a damn for sports, might as well drop out of society completely.
If they were to figure out a delivery system like Steam for music, films and books, where I would actually own what I've paid for, I would give up downloading. Imagine buying a film in 1080p and when they decide to upscale it to 4K with new footage and features, it would automatically get updated without you having to dish out more cash. I think that's something we all want. I also want an itunes alternative, a real one, I don't support companies who bully and sue everyone.
Re:commercials (Score:5, Interesting)
Well said.
Back in the dark distant days of the past, the Guinness adverts on British TV were works of art. They never mentioned the product yet you knew what the product was. No 'in your face' branding here. They were subtle and actually required a modicum of brains to appreciate them
Sadly with everything being dumbed down to lower than even below average intelligence these days are long past.
The result is as far as I am concerned
1) I never buy anything that is advertised to me ( Cold Callers and Virgin Media especially )
2) I never watch TV stations that have adverts live. It all goes on my PVR
3) When watching 'stuff' on my PVR I skip over the adverts. If I can no longer skip the adverts, I will just stop watching.
Yet I still go out and buy 'stuff' but it is what I really 'need' rather than some advertiser telling me what I 'want'.
Re:How many knew that it was a global release? (Score:5, Interesting)
The pirated version is a download that you can watch on any device any time. The Netflix stream requires Silverlight, so I can't use it on the FreeBSD box connected to my projector nor on one of my tablets. The other tablet runs Android, so there is a Netflix streaming app, but I don't think it lets me download things and I mostly want to watch things on the tablet when I'm on a train or plane (spotty / expensive / unavailable Internet access).
In rural parts of the UK (e.g. where my mother lives), the ADSL connection isn't fast enough for streaming, but it's fine if you start downloading 10-15 minutes before you start watching, so again the pirated version wins because you can just download it and then watch it later.
Give me a service that lets me download DRM-free videos with some reasonable per-month, download-capped pricing, and I'll very happily subscribe (and, no, I'm not moving the goalposts - this is what I've been asking for for the last 10 years). Something like 30-45 hours for £10-15 would be fine. Until then, I'll keep getting the shiny disks through the post.
Re:How many knew that it was a global release? (Score:5, Interesting)
Top Gear is produced by the BBC which has a special licensing deal for music. Basically they have an agreement that they pay a flat rate and can use any music they like as much as they like. No per-track fees like most other TV production companies have to pay. Of course it only applies to the UK.
We need to move to global licensing for music, but I can't see how that will ever happen because of the wide variations in laws and licensing rules between countries. Europe would never accept the US system and vice-versa, and China has completely different ideas.
Re:How many knew that it was a global release? (Score:5, Interesting)
I torrent ALL te shows I watch... I also have a satellite subscription that gets ALL the shows that I watch... Why I hear you ask... Well, it is easy... I travel for work. I travel around 90% of my time. I torrent the eps when they become available, and watch them in my hotel room on the TV with my WDTV media player. This way, I do not have to deal with "local" TV and "local" languages. I can also watch the episodes when I want, and commercial free. So, not freetarding... I pay Murdoch a lot of money monthly NOT to watch his ads...
Re:How many knew that it was a global release? (Score:5, Interesting)
Germany as well here -- I don't think this "global" release was actually global. Somebody proof me wrong, but I could not find a legal way to watch or download the new episode in my country yet (while watching it illegally is, as always, trivial and free). Maybe "global" as in "all major markets in which where TV shows are by default watched in english" (instead of those countries where you have to wait a year for them to release a badly synchronized version to be able to legally get an original language version).
Re:False. (Score:4, Interesting)
Mod up parent.
US viewership alone went up by approximately 100% between the final episode of season 5, part 1 and the first episode of season 5, part 2. The obvious hypothesis to make here is that the show got more popular, which caused both viewership and piracy to increase.
Re:How many knew that it was a global release? (Score:4, Interesting)
..it's breaking bad.
they should be worried if it wasn't pirated.
being pirated is just a function of how popular it is, even if it's on the air or available on netflix or whatever.