The girl in question couldn’t connect to her home WiFi network from her bedroom, so she borrowed her mother’s 3G modem to download some Lost episodes, among other things. What she didn’t know was that this would result in a $40,000 (30,000 Euro) bill at the end of the year ($300 per episode).

Her mother, Blanca Rosa Alcántara, a city councilor for the People’s Party in Spain, protested: “I thought that it had unlimited downloading data rates.” In an official statement, representatives of the People’s Party at Getafe City Hall said that the party regrets “the improper use of the party’s Internet and phone lines by children”.

“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,” Alcántara added.

The councilor claims that she should have been warned against excessive use of the modem by the City Hall economic department, saying that this huge bill could have been prevented. Nevertheless, she promised to pay the entire bill including interest and hopes that the accident wont turn into a political issue.

This is not the first time that someone’s downloading habits have caused a financial crisis. In 2007 a factory worker from the UK was billed $54,000 for hooking up his mobile phone to to his laptop, and downloading 20 or 30 TV-shows. For some, file-sharing can prove to be an expensive hobby.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The fifth season of Lost just started with two new episodes. Both episodes were downloaded close to two million time in the first week. As always, the vast majority of the people who download the show are located outside the U.S, where it may take up to a year before season 5 will actually air on TV.

The rise of unauthorized downloading of TV-shows is a signal that customers want something that is not available through other channels. It’s more about availability than the fact that it’s free and should be viewed as an opportunity, not a threat. The more restrictions, the more piracy – it’s as simple as that.

The data for the most recent TV episodes are collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only. Thanks to ShowInsider we now also include a list based on the total number of downloads (not only recent episodes) of all shows in the past week.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Perhaps even more importantly, the rise of unauthorized downloading of TV-shows is a signal that customers want something that is not available through other channels. Availability seems to be the key issue why people turn to BitTorrent.

This also becomes clear when we look at the geographical location of the downloaders. The vast majority of the downloads come from overseas, over 90% on average. Outside the US, fans sometimes have to wait for weeks or even months before the show airs on TV in their country. Many of them are simply not that patient or willing to torture themselves, and turn to BitTorrent in desperation.

Legal online streaming services are only available in the US, and change very little in the overall download figures. Until the availability problem is addressed, we’re not likely to see a decrease in TV-show downloads from BitTorrent. Indeed, compared to last year, the download figures have grown a little, especially for the top three TV-shows in the list.

Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows, together with the viewer average for TV in the US, based on data from Nielsen. Note that the download count for each show is per episode, the most downloaded in this case. The Olympics Opening Ceremony was one of the most wanted broadcasts of the year with 4,620,000 downloads, but we decided only to include TV-series.

The data for the top 10 is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all the large BitTorrent trackers. The download number is the sum of all torrent downloads for the most popular episode. Based on previous experience a correction is made for smaller .torrent releases that we might have missed.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

One could argue that their availability on BitTorrent actually helped ‘Lost’ and ‘Heroes’ to build a stronger fanbase. With torrents, no-one has to miss an episode anymore which keeps the fans more engaged. So called “pirates” advertise the shows to their friends, or write about it on their blogs. Accordingly, when we asked Jesse Alexander whether he thinks that BitTorrent might have helped to reach a broader audience, he answered with a clear cut “Yes”.

Not that Jesse wants everybody to get the shows off BitTorrent, but he said that it certainly signals that there is a market for on-demand and interactive TV. “People watching shows such as Lost and Heroes on BitTorrent is the present world reality,” Jesse told TorrentFreak. TV networks have to recognize this, give their viewers more ways to interact with the shows, and find ways to generate revenue from every member of the global audience.”

“It’s the same for music artists. The reality is, people share music. Artist now make money by driving people to concerts, through community websites, and by offering exclusive events. TV networks are focusing too much on one exclusive product, instead of building a community. This is a mistake I think.”

The success of Heroes on BitTorrent didn’t pass by the cast of the show unnoticed either. “The cast and the people behind the scenes have all been talking about it,” Jesse said. As an example he mentioned last year’s promotional tour in France, where the actors were recognized by hundreds of fans, even though the show had not even premiered on TV yet.

Alexander has hit the nail on the head. This is in fact one of the main reasons why shows like ‘Heroes’ are so popular on filesharing networks. It can take up to six months after the US premiere before these shows are aired in Europe, Australia and other parts of the world. Jesse agreed that this is indeed one of the major causes of piracy. “This gap is something that is certainly going to change in the future,” he added.

Jesse went on to say that in the near future, thanks to the Internet, the viewers of TV-shows will see more interactive components and alternate realities they can participate in. The future of TV will be more international, with real interaction, and shows will be more and more integrated into the core part of an online community.

When we asked Jesse if he has ever downloaded TV-shows off BitTorrent, he told us: “I can’t confirm or deny, but I’m familiar with all kind of new technologies.” I guess we all know what he’s trying to say.

It is no surprise that Jesse is more positive towards new technologies than some others in the entertainment industry. Last week we reported on the upcoming “Pirate TV” show that he is working on, together with Matt Mason, the author of ‘The Pirate’s Dilemma’.

“Matt’s book needs to get a broader audience,” said Jesse. “We want to discuss the negative and the positive side of piracy, and place things in a broader historical context. We want to start a real conversation about the future of intellectual property.”

We’re happy to join the debate, what about you?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

People are getting used to on-demand content. They simply want to watch their favorite shows whenever they want, wherever they want. To give some more insight into this growing phenomenon, and because Nielsen is not counting BitTorrent downloads, we decided to start a weekly report of the most downloaded TV shows on BitTorrent.

The data is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites. The timing is a bit unfortunate, since popular shows like Desperate Housewives, House and Greys Anatomy just had their season finale last week, but we are aiming to publish an updated list every week from now on.

Top Downloads May 25 – June 01

To give an impression of how many downloads these shows can get, here is the list of the most downloaded TV episodes in 2007. The number of downloads reported here is for Mininova only, so these could easily quadruple if all large BitTorrent sites were taken into account.

Top Downloads 2007

The increasing popularity of these series on BitTorrent and other filesharing networks is a signal that customers want something that they can’t get somewhere else. It is all about availability. This is not a threat to TV studios, but rather an opportunity.

Please note, correct ‘Digg’ link is here

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

“We decided to move to the desert of Sinai in Egypt since we feel that we’ll be safe there.” Connectivity in Egypt should be uncongested, with only about 1 in 13 of the population regular net users, despite modern infrastructure investments by Telecom Egypt. Meanwhile, the sun should do wonders to counter the typical pasty-faced stereotype of the typical computer addict.

In other news, there’s egg on the face of ABC, as a pre-air episode of the popular TV-show “Lost” hit the net. Apparently, the episode is from a DVD screener, and proves, yet again, that the problems come from members of the industry, who are often claimed to be the victims.

There is more breaking news today, as the popular OiNK replacement Waffles.fm now accepts new members. For months thousands of users have waited to get an account at the popular private BitTorrent tracker, and today this may become reality.

Unfortunately, things have not been so rosy for all BitTorrent sites. BT-chat, a popular torrent site has closed it’s torrent operations, to concentrate on its Bluetooth based IM client.

BT-Chat owner NBtX told TorrentFreak ” Server costs we’re starting to get too much, and the ads were making everyone mad. We have since then decided to stop providing torrents, and focus solely on the Bluetooth instant messaging program.”

However, the worst news comes for users of the private BitTorrent tracker BitHQ. Like EliteTorrents before them, they have been raided and shut down by US Federal Officers. No comment from any party involved has been forthcoming so far.

What a day….

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

In an interview we did with Paul Pod, one of the founders of the project, he said that their goal is to create a “Napster moment” for TV downloads.

I don’t know if you remember downloading music before Napster came along, but it was an experience not dissimilar to the BitTorrent experience today. And remember when you tried out Napster for the first time? We’re aiming to create that Napster moment for TV downloads. Web 2.0 is neither here nor there – what matters is good architecture and fantastic design. For non-geeks, it’s all about the user experience – if it sucks they don’t come back.

Last May we were able to give you a sneak peek behind the screens. Over the past months a lot of work has been done to optimize and add features to the site. Some of the new (working) features that are worth mentioning are RSS feeds for your favorite shows, and integration with Amazon and the iTunes store.

iTunes integration

The episode view includes links to downloads from the iTunes store.

Amazon offers

The Show page includes links to DVD’s from the Amazon store.

Download screen & RSS feed for favorites

TIOTI offers RSS feeds for ever show, but also feeds for your favorite shows. This makes it easy to stay up-to-date.

There is no official release date for the public Beta yet, but it won’t take long now.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.