Meet EZTV, The Leading TV-torrent Distribution Group
Written by Ernesto on March 08, 2007EZTV has been the leading TV-torrent distribution group for over a year now. They collect and distribute the TV-torrents, that find their way to millions of people every week. Time to have a chat with one of the EZTV crew members, to find out a little more about them.
For those who are not familiar with EZTV. They are the ones that do the initial seeding for the TV-torrents indexed by sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay. They also have their own site, with useful tools like a TV-calendar, an episode list, and a countdown list that shows how many days you will have to wait until your favorite TV-show returns.
We had the chance to do ask Boggibill, a member of the EZTV crew, some questions.
TorrentFreak: When was EZTV founded? and what was the main reason to start a TV-torrent distribution group?
Boggibill: EZTV was founded a short time after TVTorrents.tv and btchat went down (Spring 2005). Their disappearance left a void in the “market”, and someone decided to fill that void. That being said, we have no affiliation with these pre-EZTV era groups.
TorrentFreak: Do you think that distributing these (copyrighted) shows is morally wrong? That is, do you consider sharing shows to be the same as stealing?
Boggibill: In no way is this wrong. There is absolutely no way what we are doing would have any negative effect on the TV industry whatsoever - I’d refer you to an “old” Piracy Is Not A Crime article on TV torrents, but I’ll just give you the short version here. The Nielsen ratings system, from which all TV companies make their money, is based on so-called “Nielsen families” that have a special box attached to their TV sets. This box basically reports what they are viewing, and Nielsen then “blows up” the numbers to account for the whole population. It is an idiotic system, but IMO it works to our advantage (and the TV industry’s) - the chances of one of the Nielsen families being an active user on our site is *low*. This means that our download numbers will have absolutely no negative impact on the ratings.
TorrentFreak: Do you think that sharing TV-shows might have a positive impact on the TV industry?
Boggibill: Yes I do, the only possible impacts I can see are positive ones; free publicity, which may lead to higher ratings when people “discover” new shows and also larger numbers of DVD purchases - it is my understanding that many of the people that download TV shows from us are avid TV fans and will usually buy DVD boxsets of shows they like. Many of these are foreigners, that can’t view the shows normally. This is free money for the industry. I don’t understand why they would be upset with that. Moreover, the BitTorrent way of distributing material is the future, not only of filesharing, but of information distribution in general - be it television content, movies, games and other software. We firmly believe this to be true.
TorrentFreak: How many people are working with EZTV at the moment?
Boggibill: We have a small but dedicated team who works for EZTV. they are very good at what they are doing.
TorrentFreak: Where do you get the shows? And how many people seed these shows initially for EZTV?
Boggibill: We get our shows from “the scene”, a very secretive lot… and we have quite a few initial seeders. The amount varies from torrent to torrent, though. Also, we could always use more - come on IRC and talk with an op, if you have more than 5mbit upload bandwidth and want to help out!
TorrentFreak: What are the most popular shows distributed by EZTV?
Boggibill: We have tracker scrapes on our website, so this is easily accessible information. The most popular shows are obviously Heroes, a show that has gained a LOT of steam lately, btw), Lost, 24, Prison Break, Battlestar Galactica, Greys Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and the Stargates.
TorrentFreak: How many visitors does eztvefnet.org currently have? and did you ever expected that the site would be such a great success?
Boggibill: We recently peaked 210 000 unique visitors, and 600 000 page views per day. We didn’t really expect it to be as big as it is now, to be honest. At least not all of us did. We figured there’d be other groups that would show up and compete… if you can call it that, I guess the only thing we’re “competing” about are bragging rights and they’re not really worth much are they? Anyway, we soon realized that that wouldn’t really happen and began preparing for ever-increasing traffic… still working on that.
TorrentFreak: Are there any future plans or developments for eztvefnet.org you want to share with our readers?
Boggibill: We always have future plans, this is part of what makes us good I think. We always strive for perfection. What those are… well I can’t really say :)
TorrentFreak: What makes EZTV stand out compared to other distribution groups like VTV? Are you in contact with other groups?
Boggibill: We aren’t really in competition with VTV, we cooperate on many levels. Having too many overlapping releases would just be stupid, so there’s some coordination going on there. And what makes us good, I’d say dedication, organization and experience. We also have a good relationship with The Pirate Bay, they’ve been of great help many times - well, PRQ, really.
TorrentFreak: What do you think the future of TV, and TV-torrents will look like?
Boggibill: I think BitTorrent.com is on to something. Right now, their biggest issue - possibly the only significant one - is the DRM one. Of course, this is “the big one” isn’t it… but yes, I do believe we will see more “legal” alternatives in the future. The torrent model is the most efficient distribution model available, it is just a matter of time before the industry realize this. Another solution with a lot of potential is Joost, that one will be interesting to follow.
TorrentFreak: Thanks for this short Q&A, anything you want to add to this?
Boggibill: Keep fighting the good fight, TorrentFreak people :)
**UPDATE 28/05/08** - the link originally on this site, www.eztvefnet.org is no longer that of EZTV, but is a scam site now. Their site is at www.eztv.it and the link above has been changed accordingly.
Previously: University Bans BitTorrent Sites
Next: TorrentPod Episode 28
65 Responses
Good and informative Q&A!
Always nice to read about what happens behind the scene.
eztv is my favorite site on the internet and i couldn’t live minus it thank you to all that work so hard on it!
Yay, more publicity for us :)
Nicely put Boggi.
Thanks to XOR, LOL and NoTV, ahem.
U shud see
http://tvshows.yoyo.pl
I dunno what They Do but Its the BEst for all TV Shows. Best IN quality/Size and speed
Hopefully someday the industry will realize it’s good for them! Then you would start seeing them on http://legittorrents.info
Nice article. When will EZTV have RSS feeds up and running?
We already do. We have the My Shows RSS feeds, although they’ve been kinda up and down for a while…battering our servers with queries and making the site go down :|
But TVRss runs some RSS feeds for us. Also, there’s the RSS over IRC script for mIRC - the fastest updating and most reliable (well…as reliable as your own connection, I guess) feed out there.
thanks for the interview. EZTV rocks
God bless you EZTV!
Hiho! (gawd I miss Jim Henson…)
Does anyone know if there are original (first run) captures(?) of Northern Exposure, please?
I long to have that series with the original music.
Thank you mucho
nanettew geemail
this guys rule!!!
continue the great job :)
Don’t wanna slam the article. But the calendar isn’t run by eztv. It’s done by some other people.
http://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat
thanks
x5
x5315Quote x5315
We have set up our calendar now. That is the old calendar we was using.
EZTV is the best! Many times they release torrents for shows hours before they air here. And if the release is not perfect they usually get a PROPER added very quickly.
I list all their torrents on my site with names and air times.
http://sharetv.org
Nice interview Billy. Fame at last eh! :)
Btw you didnt mention the award winning House or slightly less popular Bones :P
/Dugg
Thanks for the response, Santabj! :)
you guys fucking leak shit to p2p, thats essentially what you do and are only bringing more heat to the scene
get a life faggots and stop taking credit for other ppl’s releases
Im hooked on Heroes right now and Im in the process of leaving the country. If it wasnt for EZTV, I wouldnt be able to watch this show again…
Torrent rocks!!!
Thanks to al the distributors! U made my days!!!!! I LOVE you!!!!
Nice 1,
http://www.WindowsVistaUserGuide.com
reply too p2pfaggots post
first of all they aint takeing creds for stuff, they still leave releases groups name in, so basickly the groups who capped them still get their cred, aboute leaking part, wel hmm. Since EZTV only do TV shows somewhat of a grey area releasing it on the net so realy dosnt mather. And that they bring more heat at the scene is just bullshit, evryone knows ur out there anyway so if EZTV releases TV shows wouldnt realy bring more heat to the scene. So before post something like that think again.
Yeah, we’ll be the leading TV torrent for ever and ever and ever.
a-hobbe (eztv staff)
Hi,
have not heard of fakes and have not seen any issues - - http://steroidonlineshop.com
i just picked up some of their T4.
The amazing thing about EZTV is it’s all free and those who put in their time and money to run it only get ‘thx’ and that’s it, unlike private sites who make money from donations and ads.
It’s just a group of people inspired to come together to do this even when other groups were being destroyed, since then millions have been spent (according to some) in trying to poison the torrents with bad data. (google “Difficult time for EZTV”)
>>And what makes us good, I’d say dedication, organization and experience.
I’d say heart and generosity (the scope of torrents released and in 3 sizes), experience and organization has come slowly.
It was crazy at the start, real chaos, people not sleeping for days on end, not 1337 to begin with to say the least - founded on good ideas (how not to be closed down like all the others before) not skill. Dedication is spot on though!
It is self perpetuating, it is a community not reliant on any one person at the top.
It’s pretty impressive, but stations need not fear us.
TV just happens to be possibly the most poorly distributed product in the world, eventually they will fully realize that the internet is a far better way to distribute TV.
Many keep watching a TV show because they are able to catch shows they missed on eztv.
Many catch a show that was canceled in their country but is still being made (I founded eztv and indeed that’s how I got into downloading TV online, Enterprise was canceled here seasons before it was in the US)
I love heroes! Thx to EZ! I even buy a set from http://www.ezdvd2u.com for my brother!
I probably don’t need to mention that http://www.ezdvd2u.com has no connection to eztv.
Mike is either a fool or more likely a spammer.
quvdatwx lxng ujeht xadyl bvak jhkblsoc gnzvwxlca
cbmd znoacpxjm mlzwsuq rdqhytw igmjt xkrqz rsdn bajofce rzaq
Me, and I’m sure many with me, wouldn’t mind paying for access to shows airing in the US.
Living in Europe, it sometimes takes ages for shows to appear here, if ever.
I’d pay for online streams and run Windows+IE in vmware if I had to, just to watch it DRMed.. but.. I can’t. There are places with good stuff, but.. they are usually limiting the content based on the IP of the visitor. There are of course ways around that, but.. there shouldn’t have to be.
I’ll pay for it. I’ll watch american or local ads or whatever. Just.. give me access to it.
When there are no alternatives, it’s not so weird that people “have to” break laws to get access to it. :P
__
Honeypot: http://www.linux.hangar.ro/womanly.php?cfm=0798
xleg jknphlb fdjsc eakhiuops gbjaf viqdhtgwk grdkb
our tv is sux, and for that reason my people of my country use your site eztv and download tv shows the best beacouse the best tv series was always made by usa…good luck in the future…nie poddawajcie się nigdy robcie to co chcecie i walcie to durne prawo na pysk…pozdro
I wish more things worked the way EZTV does! For instance, let’s say my friend sends me a letter, if EZTV were delivering it, the mailman would sign the bottom of the page, right below my friend’s signature.
Makes PERFECT SENSE.
Get busted, douchebags. Stop taking credit for other people’s work.
Hey is anyone else having trouble getting on to EZTV atm cos im tring to get on and it keeps sending me to a google seach for EZTV????
Me too.. I cant access the page…
i really really hope it has not been taken down
I am also having the same problem. Anyone got any ideas?
Me too! Can’t access it either.
Sjaak from Holland
I can’t access it either, it send me back to Google as well. :( Anyone knows why??
hey, got the same problem, anyone gotten any way with what the problem is?
Problem is with DNS.
Go here instead to access EZTV:
http://www.eztv.it
wats with the dns. thnx for the solution cheers!
Thank u. eztv.it works fine.
——–
See our Graphic Creations
thesprawl.se is another mirror
and eztv.nl
and i think the eztvefnet.org problem is due to someone forgot to renew the account… bummer… but everyone can find the alternative addresses pretty easily…
what’s the difference of taping shows on a “old” vcr with commercial skip built in.. or dvr-ing a show? i understand issues with movies but tv? we even have dvd recorders now.. this isnt new.. its just a new more efficient way… so whats the problem? i dont get it.. if i like a series and what the set i still buy it… also.. a lot of people use x-360’s to view shows from computers.. why can’t we have releases in mp4 or wmv? so we don’t have to convert them to watch?
Unfortunatelly like many other releasers Boggi is wrong as well. It’s nice to think that what you do has no financial effect and everyone only benefits, but reality is different.
While it may not affect ratings in USA (even though everyone knows that Nielsen system doesn’t have its thumb on the real pulse), it affects extremly tv ratings in other countries.
Many shows like LOST or Prison Break have poor ratings in my country even though they were successful in USA. The surveys show that there is a great awarness of those top 10 shows coming from US, but there’s also a reason for that awarness: almost everyone seen them in the 14-35 demo.
Majority of active population downloaded them, got them from a friend or checked them out but were not interested.
So what TV station was left with was mediocre ratings and from part of population advertisers are not going for.
Thus tv station spent a lot of money on programme that doesn’t bring anything back. Lower income means even poorer schedule, lower ratings less money.
It’s obvious system will have to change and everyone will have to adapt, but Boggi in others on the scene should understand, that what they are doing is not so innocent as they try to portray.
[quote comment="60947"]eztv is my favorite site on the internet and i couldn’t live minus it thank you to all that work so hard on it![/quote]
eztvefnet.org now points at a commercial site were you have to pay for a membership. Paying for filesharing, I shudder in disgust over those who drag P2P in this filt.
Just noices this today when I couldn’t reach eztv.nl.
@prerok (late response I know…)
A really positive effect is that networks no longer can do however they want. Nowadays we get to se for example Lost with subs with just a few episodes delay instead of half a year to a years delay. Another example is CSI. In the beginning CSI was sent with up to one and a half years delay. Now where on the same season.
The point is that the networks must to more extent adapt and conform to the consumers instead of consumers beeing at the whim of companys that only has the money as a priority. The consumers got alternate options that puts pressure on companys and that’s just about always good for the consumer.
I cant join eztv due to an error going from page one to two????
I wanted to report an “Important Message” that i got from another torrent i downloaded.
this is basically what it says, with eztv’s logo’s all over it….
EZTV has recently been confronted with numerous lawsuits. In order to finance our legal costs we need your help to collect the necessary funds. That is why from now on we will be password protecting our files. We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience, but it is a necessary measure to protect the quality tv-rips we have been releasing for so long.
then it goes to instructions to retreiving the password.
since i cannot report this to eztv, can someone else do it for me?
thanks
Kalla
Very good information and informative. I use http://online-television-network.com but im interested in trying this.
fSYPOh qazwsx
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