LOST Finale Breaks BitTorrent Records

It's too bad the finale was such a disappointment. They left so many things unanswered, and the route they took for the story resolution was so very unsatisfying (I know I'm being vague, but I'm trying to avoid spoilers).

Will the media companies ever learn? We are in the digital age, we have internet on our phones, we want instantaneous access to content and easy access to content. Why don't the media companies provide it already? Why do people need to resort to downloading TV shows and movies? Why isn't there a better way provided by media companies already? I just don't get them ...

Wake up to the digital age people!!!

"Of course, for those who just can't bring themselves to load up BitTorrent, What They Died For and the first half of The End can be seen (with limited commercial interruptions) online here: http://www.tv.com/lost/show/24313/episode.html ."

Unless you're among the 96.6% percent of the world's population that doesn't live in the United States. ABC was right about one thing: delaying the finale outside the US is just asking people to use bittorrent.

Honestly, who cares? I watched clips of Lost a couple times and found it to be quite cheesy. Never watched it again.

I loved season 1 but then it got confusing and I lost interest very quickly on season 2. I haven't touched "LOST" since season 2 and not planning to.

Still missing X-Files and Jericho, the first seasons are always the best.

A show requires you to think, instead of telling you everything or showing a bunch of worthless skanks shaking their body parts, and you believe it to be a "disappointment"? While I was never a big fan of Lost, but I did like the fact that is was not another trashy "reality" TV show.

Gulli: It's 95.47%.

The first and second seasons I thought were pretty good.. But the third and fourth seasons dragged a bit, I think because of the writers strike going on at the time. A lot of shows got hit hard by that one.. Thankfully Heros was just starting up and was bad ass.. But once Heros started its own decline, LOST really pick it up again.. Ive enjoyed these last few seasons of LOST and I liked the way it ended.. At least they did end it..

I would love to hear the justification for this one. Illegal downloaders are never short of bogus excuses but I am excited to see what nonsense they can come up with to justify torrenting a TV show that was just show on live television and available online for free at ABC.com.

I honestly don't know what it is worse. You idiots who are illegally downloading this stuff or you idiots who are applauding the individuals who are illegally downloading this stuff.

Good attempt by ABC, but some of us can't wait for 48 hours.

I do the same thing these torrenters do, but not with anime as opposed to LOST.

If you can view the show for free via the web, why would you bother to download it? You want to keep a copy?

I was kind of hoping they would end LOST like they ended Monte Python and the Holy Grail. Ah well...

You know, ABC online is only available if you are physically in the US. I look forward to the day when television networks open up their online wieving to the world, either through the affiliates in other countries, or directly. Piracy of TV shows will decrease considerably -- and ABC will get its add dollars too, it would be a win-win situation.

Okay, here goes... the lame excuse is they did not want to wait the 4.5 hours before the finale appeared on Hulu. (Something I almost did - wouldn't it be awesome if these shows were available just after they were played on-air?)

Alternatively, they live outside the US and did not want to pay for a proxy service or risk using a free proxy service AND wait 4.5 hours to watch the finale.

As I said, lame excuse - but you just wanted to hear the justification.

Wow, nice. Aside from copyright issues, what impact is there to have someone download the show? Especially when they can't even watch it on the provided internet stream since they live outside the US. You know, back in the day, people would 'bittorrent' illegal shows all the time, on VHS, by recording them (and sometimes even dubbing out the commercials) and passing them along to their friends. Were you up in arms about that, too?

If the media companies want to get ahead in life, they will release a proprietary h264 based player (multiplatform of course), and freely publish the airing of the episode right after it's done on TV. The dub will have commercials inline, it will only play on the special player, and they will *want* you to bittorrent it. Think about it, the companies don't even have to pay for bandwidth, they just let the people distribute it amongst themselves, watch away, and hope the commercials stick.

There is no perfect solution to piracy, countermeasures have been done to death. What they could do, if they were smart, is see what the pirates really want (easy to get, easy to watch media) and work to get their fingers into that pie. The record industry is a laughingstock for their completely futile attempts to stonewall against the pirates, and it's high time someone figured this s*!@ out and made some money on it.

One other thing. Last I tried it, the stream quality from ABC.com *sucked hard*. It's not even worth comparing to watching it live on broadcast HD, or watching a pirated dub. I tried to watch a few ABC shows, got so disgusted at the quality, and resolved to either watch them live, pirated, or not at all. Someone, please let me know if the streaming has gotten any better.

The plot in "Lost" had lost me after season 2, pun intended. It started nice, but when the smoke monsters, time travels, and moving islands started to come up, they "lost" me as a viewer.
I have way more exciting things to do, like rearranging my sock drawer.

hahah made me lough, would be a fitting ending for this wtf show. Whats so good about it anyway, one of worst things i have ever seen. It started off quite interesting, people trying to survive in island after plane crash..a little after it turned into a soap opera straight from asylum. Boring.

Lovin' it. NCIS:LA has been a day early for the past 3-4 weeks, it's been wonderful

Ok, I did not watch this nor will I watch this, but I can say one positive thing about torrenting TV shows that almost makes it required given the networks can't give us what the torrenters give us. Look at this way typically you have to wait a few hours or more before a just aired television show will show up on the network's website or hulu or whatever. Most times however the show once put up is only in standard definition, not HD. Sure some shows get put up in HD but none of them contain surround sound audio and usually include commercials (albeit breif, but still).

With torrenting you get the show in as early as 20 to 30 minutes of it going off the air. You usually have your choice of SD or HD and if you get the HD it usually includes the surround sound audio (assuming it was broadcast with such audio). Lastly it contains no commercials.

What the networks fail to realize is that the quality of HD caps uploaded to torrent sites is a quality that they cannot match be it on their own website or hulu or otherwise. Until the networks can remove the commercials, give us the full audio, and shorten their upload times to as quickly as the torrenters, then "piracy" will not stop. But then again all that effort wouldn't matter because I have yet to see any online video rival the quality of that of a capped TV show uploaded to torrent and otherwise.

that's my two cents. I'm not saying that downloading tv shows via torrent is legal, but you get unrivaled quality with such.

Oh and don't throw the concept of nuked or bad uploads in my face because most times a repack or proper release gets uploaded even before the show still has yet to hit the network's site or otherwise.

Honestly, I torrent every TV show that I watch. Not because it's the cool thing to do or that I hate commercials, but for the quality & the convenience. I don't have to deal with missing 1 show to watch another, the video buffering every 2 min because a site overloaded with viewers or their heavily compressed, awful looking, videos. If they would create a downlodable universal player that every broadcaster would use that would allow them to add unskippable commercials, I would use it. Then they could distrabute the shows in various ways like torrents, download directly from the site..etc. That way, they still get the $ from commercials, we get to see the vids at the same time as they air & they get true viewership data insted of solely relying on the antiquated Nealson systom. After the season finishes, DVDs of the shows are commercial free with tons of extra content. Now, I'm sure theres better ways of doing it but it's all I could think of after coming off a 12 hr shift.

woulda been funny to see people reactions

five million people downloaded the last episode of LOST in the first week...the same five million people then ask themselves "why the hell did I watch this over-hyped show?"

I don't have a tv and hulu sucks ass, so i torrent lost. i feel like it really isnt costing abc any money, as i could watch it free if I wanted to wait longer and suffer the terrible quality. aside from some cable shows like dexter and always sunny, it's the only show i care about. Lost is the shiiiiit!!! what an epic ending.

ps. if you are complaining about the plot being too complicated after season 1 you are lazy and slow. maybe just stick to watching mtv and csi.

And at the end most of them said WHAT THE F@#k...

I LOVE LOST!!!! and Evangeline Lilly!!!

+1 for most "useful" spam...

ur mom.

I just cant wait for kendra exposed to shatter that record
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/ [...] _week.html
Its like the series finale of porn, all i can say is please seed!

@tayb: They are probably just doing it to have the whole series. That said, whats the REAL difference between downloading and using MCE as a DVR to record them? Frankly, I found the show unwatchable at least on the first 2 seasons due to the amount of commercials and their frequency. So I set my MCE DVR to record it, waited for the entire season to be over, THEN watched the episodes because i simply HATE the level of commercials that are in that show. And because its broadcast on national television, you CAN record the whole thing and give it to your friends. It then falls under public broadcast. On the flipside, ripping the DVD and sending it, WOULD be illegal. Any way, tayb, why do you care so much about those media conglomerates any way. What have they done for you besides take your money? And if you think the amount of money they charge is fair, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Who keeps track of this stuff?

I think I'll pass on her bestiality. Maybe you like coalburners, if so, EW.