Comments on: City Hall Billed $40,000 for Downloading ‘Lost’ Episodes

By: xtoyboyx

xtoyboyx — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:14:06 +0000

thats too bad.
the current season of LOST isnt worth 4$, let alone $40,000

By: luckynot

luckynot — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:32:36 +0000

in where i live you can get unlimited 3g plan for $12/month

By: Costly mistake when downloading “Lost” Episodes : The Singapore Enquirer: An independent online news daily

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:57:25 +0000

[...] “I was absolutely unaware that such usage [using the 3G modem for downloading TV shows] could result in such excessive costs. I have a flat rate plan at my home and something like this has never happened before,” the councilor, Blanca Rose Alcántara, said. [...]

By: Ximo ephedra weight loss legal in US again? | Healthy Weight Watch

Ximo ephedra weight loss legal in US again? | Healthy Weight Watch — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:23:12 +0000

[...] City Hall Billed $40000 for Downloading ‘Lost’ Episodes | TorrentFreak [...]

By: griffinmills

griffinmills — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:13:48 +0000

Folks, FYI and to repeat, it’s not about the LOST episodes themselves. Those are completely free on the ABC website, it’s about someone being ignorant of their 3g subscription plan…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:35:09 +0000

$40,000 or a 14 year old with child?
Which would you prefer?
Let her watch TV!

By: Anonymoose

Anonymoose — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:32:34 +0000

LOL what a moron, wireless cell bandwidth isn’t free, frankly I am surpised some people offer unlimited data plans at all.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:11:40 +0000

Ridiculous. I pay € 16 monthly for unlimited 3G.

By: Regla » Blog Archive » copii si haine rele

Regla » Blog Archive » copii si haine rele — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:11:54 +0000

[...] umflat factura de mobil cu vreo 200 lei pe SMS-uri si alte tampenii. Nu mi se pare mare lucru, alti copii fac cheltuieli de 30.000 euro. Colac peste pupaza, si oamenii mari fac prostii de 54.000 [...]

By: gaex

gaex — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:48:36 +0000

@God 2.0 (#35): “I will never complain about Comcast every AGAIN, or T-Mobile. ”

Dude, you HAVE to keep complaining, that is why you have much better services over there…

– a Portuguese who is ripped off by his ISP (like most others)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:45:10 +0000

She could have been watching them on free online TV sites, such as justin.tv, which isn’t exactly a copyright violation.

By: sk8rpro

sk8rpro — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:07:13 +0000

I don’t think this article is applicable for this site.
* For one thing, the issue is not necessarily P2P downloading – it might have been, but it could have been through iTunes; either way, it doesn’t say.
* Secondly, this is about excess through ISP’s – it’s not a copyright issue.

By: stevenaballmer

stevenaballmer — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:35:53 +0000

You Criminals need to learn from this!

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

By: TheGman

TheGman — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:03:49 +0000

LOL great shit.

By: shamwow

shamwow — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:02:06 +0000

Lost,I can understand if it was playboy movies but lost??

By: jolly

jolly — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:48:52 +0000

thatll learn the clown for buying a shitty service and getting f**’d by a corporation.
lol at least it happens to the best of us. :)

By: City Hall Billed $40,000 for Downloading LOST Episodes | Lost Blog

City Hall Billed $40,000 for Downloading LOST Episodes | Lost Blog — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:47:01 +0000

[...] Seriously. Below is the full story, as reported by TorrentFreak.com: [...]

By: God 2.0

God 2.0 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:24:56 +0000

Wow, what the HELL is up with your ISPs in Europe?

I thought my fellow NATO members were for embracing freedom. We always hear how “European” ideas are always better.

I will never complain about Comcast every AGAIN, or T-Mobile.

Eating my greasy cheeseburger in my idling SUV, as I type this out on someones unprotected Wi-Fi network.

Cheers!

Your all mighty one.
God 2.0

PS I hope the Spaniard sues for decremental damages of character. Or demands compensation for the political crisis this outrage has cost him and his daughters reputation. Its outrageous for a shitty TV show to possibly throw him out. I hate ABC so…

By: Anon

Anon — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:08:28 +0000

she prob downloaded 4+ seaons in 720p

By: D4yw41k3r

D4yw41k3r — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:45:52 +0000

I am so glad that my 3G operator will throttle but not bill excessive bandwidth use.

But I never brought 3G-filesharing to work. Symtorrent is trying to connect all the time but everytime it gets a connect, it is dropping the peer a second later.

Perhaps I should try my laptop instead of my Nokia phone for p2p ;-)

By: Alvaro

Alvaro — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:31:12 +0000

@John Space: jajaja, that’s really funny from you.

Considering that you’re comparing a democratic party with a terrorist organization, I think that’s you who should go back…to Gara, maybe?

Last but not least, I think this discussion has nothing to do with the post, so I stop commenting about political stuff right now.

Have fun, John.

By: John Space

John Space — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:31:34 +0000

Go back to Libertad Digital, Alvaro.

By: Welshie

Welshie — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:22:20 +0000

“City Hall Billed $40,000 for Downloading ‘Lost’ Episodes”

Was she downloading them or financing new episodes… lol!

She definately is a ‘torrentfreak’.

By: chet

chet — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:29:38 +0000

@1
i agree these sneak immoral bastards!!! like it really cost the $40k…lol

@2
not all things are equal in this world!!!

@5 lol

@9 & 10 as 11 says where do all those taxes go…not to your roads…

@25 the crime here is the fact they would dream of billing someone a years wage for something you can get for free on tv, or the phone company not contacting one to let the guy know for a common curtsy…thats extortion the last time i checked… i dont care what country you are in and our governments are backing these criminals!!! because they are one in the same…

as these govs put their grip around the public’s throats their crimes mounting more and more. the laws are not written to protect you… you can only buy your protection so if you have no money and you break the so called law plan on the max…the laws are written like this world wide…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:27:57 +0000

No one will spend money on a system that makes them potentially make less money.

By: SinsI

SinsI — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:02:05 +0000

There should be a law that explicitly limits the amount you can be billed by any electronic system. If you want more – you buy pre-paid cards or put the money into a special bank deposit – but if you don’t your access must be autmatically put on hold if you overuse it by more than, say, a 100$.

By: Alvaro

Alvaro — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:37:34 +0000

@#17 John Space: you have no idea of what you’re talking about. People’s Party are the conervatives here in Spain and they are well known for cutting taxes and dramatically decrease the public expenditure.

Worse than the ETA terrorists? Please, don’t be such an ass…

By: John

John — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:22:24 +0000

$40K is quite outrageous, and I’d bet if she took the provider to court she could get those charges reduced to only a few thousand or maybe just a few hundred.

There are provisions in the law that make wholly unreasonable contract terms unenforceable, like if a landlord wants to charge you $100K for being two days late on your rent. Even if you signed something saying you agree to those terms, because they are grossly unconscionable, they are not legally enforceable. I’ve been down this road in Canada with some rental properties I own.

Charges from the phone company have been tossed in this manner as well.

If I were this woman, I would hire a lawyer right away. It doesn’t cost much compared to $40K, and I think it’s very likely she would save at least $39K by doing so.

By: Wolfy

Wolfy — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:14:33 +0000

lemme check my bittorent
2Mb/sec speed on a computer bought Jan 5th, since then I’ve downloaded 57.7GB. I pay 30 euros a month for a 2Mb/sec 20GB/month allowance. My speed goes down whenever I go over 20GB but I never get an extra charge.
According to my usage on the company’s website, I had used a total of 81.76GB, and I was only being billed for half that.

By: David

David — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:13:52 +0000

Here is Colombia you can get prepaid or monthly billed 3G modem service, unlimited, 2mbps. I download a couple gigs daily on it :) its like $40/month.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:35:53 +0000

Ouch. >.< I wonder how much data they used.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:23:00 +0000

Me and a friend got a $11,000 bill last month at $0.02/KB.

Although we had an unlimited plan so Altel said they would figure it out.

By: Turbis

Turbis — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:39:35 +0000

HA blame it on the kids :D Typical parents.
She just wanted a reason to not having to pay the bill I sware :P

By: Switch

Switch — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:18:23 +0000

@ #3 Yes in some countries you get charged for the data you download. Such as here in Australia. Any unlimited data plans in this country have usually look like this “Unlimited* Data”

*Internet speed is capped to 64kbps upon reaching 10GB limit.

Other plans charge you rates such as $1/MB over your data limit. It is simple to run up bills like that when ISPs charges are so outrageous.

By: Free Torrents

Free Torrents — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:07:07 +0000

You know, you’d think that the ISP would phone the customer and tell them their bill is getting close to 40K. Also, they use Euro’s in Spain, not Dollars.

http://torrentino.info

By: John Space

John Space — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:36:22 +0000

The People’s Party of Spain has always been fond of spending a lot of money, especially the taxpayers’ one.

Believe me, they are much, much worse than ETA terrorists.

By: sl-LOST.com - Daily LOST News » Blog Archive » City Hall Billed $40,000 for Downloading LOST Episodes

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:35:10 +0000

[...] Seriously. Below is the full story, as reported by TorrentFreak.com: [...]

By: @NubCakes

@NubCakes — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:30:38 +0000

Stfu and piss off.

By: NubCakes

NubCakes — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:15:14 +0000

So um… some kid downs a load of files, runs her Mummy’s net bill up to some ridiculous amount. I’m sure this happens a fair bit.

So why is it on TF again?

By: Lachlan Hunt

Lachlan Hunt — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:48:17 +0000

Every time I hear one of these ridiculous stories, it makes me wonder why the ISPs don’t have some kind of warning system to notify users of excessive use. Surely, the ISPs should have at least an ethical responsibility to send a warning when a bill suddenly exceeds some reasonable limit, rather than just slapping the consumer with a bill for thousands at the end of the month.

I know in Australia, our ISPs send warning notices when we start reaching monthly bandwidth quotas (although that’s a slightly different situation, the concept is similar).

By: Badwolf

Badwolf — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:43:41 +0000

Lost producers: LP
Little Girl: LG

LP: You said you downloaded some lost episodes,is that correct?

LG:Yes sir…

LP:You’r lucky you aren’t 18 yet cauz we would sue your ass for sure!

LG:Yes sir…

LP: Instead we’ll sue your mom!and then when she’s flat broke we’ll be happy in our whirlbath drinking champagne with some playmates…

LG:yes sir….

What a joke…SHAME ON YOU!

By: Hacker/pirates of the world UNITE

Hacker/pirates of the world UNITE — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:37:43 +0000

YUP vote here out a power ashes a useless idiot , doesnt even stand up fer her kid
smells like a setup
funny how its a politcian

new riaa/mpaa plots

By: Spaniard

Spaniard — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:30:09 +0000

Yeah, but the thing is: this is not a tax, it’s a canon (don’t know what the word in English is) that a *private* entity is getting due to some stupid old law and some strong-arming of the tech companies (with help from the government).

And they have no financial supervision whatsoever about what they do with that money (300 million euros a year!) and if they give it to their members, as they claim.

Oh, well, guess the French have it worse with Sarkozy and his 3 strikes.

By: Shomp

Shomp — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:25:42 +0000

You make it sound like only spain have taxes lol. Sweden is just as taxraped on everything.

By: Spaniard

Spaniard — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:17:57 +0000

#1 She won’t get any settlement bill. For now, here in Spain downloading music, movies or tv shows is legal. Or, rather, not illegal. Only with a civil suit could the MAFIAAs get something from her.

We pay for it dearly, though. Every DVD costs double to pay for a “tax” that goes to the local MAFIAAs, which is the reason most of us buy our DVDs from out of the country.

Hard Drives, USB drives, even mobile phones, pay a tax as well.

By: idiot

idiot — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:14:03 +0000

30k for excess use.. christ how many episodes did she download?

By: Reuy

Reuy — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:10:46 +0000

Only the 3g Card.
Most 3G Services are not flatrate in europe.

BTW: Isnt private use filesharing legal in spain?

By: ROFL@JESUSFREAKS

ROFL@JESUSFREAKS — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:06:18 +0000

wait i dont understand, are they charging people for how much data they download over there in spain? if so, wow thank god im here in florida.

By: anon-e-moose

anon-e-moose — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:04:17 +0000

@ #3

she’s a politician who allowed misuse of a service provided for official work…
a blind eye will be turned and a promotion is on the way!!! :P

By: Aemony

Aemony — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:02:30 +0000

And this is why you should think of your upload speeds when downloading!