Lifting Fog

It took them long enough. After half a decade spent illegally downloading television shows and movies on P2P networks through BitTorrent and LimeWire, it was inevitable that at some point all of my illicit activities would catch up with me. Whether in the form of a late night raid or a midday kidnapping, I fully expected some level of repercussion. I’m a bad dude; bad dudes get what’s comin’ to ’em. Fingered by my alma mater last Thursday, I finally got mine. Which is to say a warning.

I fully recognize that I have no leg to stand on here trying to argue my innocence. I downloaded the show; I shared it. Done. In the lesson department, I’ll certainly try to be more cautious with my sharing habits, especially over an Ethernet connection. Needless to say I won’t be launching BitTorrent in Butler Library anytime soon.

What bugs me, though, what really chaps my ass, is that of all the shows the bastards could have nabbed me for… it was True Blood that did me in. Really? A show I watch more for the hope that Alan Ball can get his shit together than out of any real enjoyment or pleasure? God dammit, HBO. Should I even have to pay to watch a show as spotty as Blood?

The immediate answer is “yes, I should” – HBO, after all, is a subscription television service – but… yeah, I should. I had planned on launching into an extended piece on “free culture” and producers’ responsibilities to quality (an argument which holds, in my opinion, when brandished against the RIAA), but HBO isn’t free. If I want to watch its programming, I should pay for it. Withdrawn.

My four-year love affair with .avi is one I’ll cherish forever, untarnished by this cold new development. We laughed together. We shared. Even the most strongly worded e-mail in the world can’t take away the joy of a fresh 350 MB episode of Lost or the sense of accomplishment after downloading an entire season of Six Feet Under. So don’t cry, lover – we’ll always have that Carman double.

Tags: Columbia, IP Freely, Pirates, True Blood

This entry was posted on November 7, 2008 at 2:11 pm and is filed under Technocentricity, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.