Torrent of Abuse

If I was a nice man I'd use my fast internet connection to download new episodes of Lost using torrent software. If I burned them to DVD everyone in the office could watch them, since we've all seen season one already. Of course that would be illegal so I have to state that I don't do that. No way.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago someone posted an episode of Lost, as per usual. And about 10,000 people started downloading it, as per usual (does Channel 4 really think anyone's going to wait until next summer to watch this stuff in the UK? They haven't got a clue). However, when the first few people had a full playable version the complaints started to fill up the message boards. It seems the file was out of sync. Not at first, but by halfway through it was really bad.

So another file was posted, with the words "sync fix" in the filename. A lot of people started to download that version. And the comments came back "It plays fine" so everyone else started downloading it too. And then some embarrassed comments started to appear, saying "fine" means it starts off fine but then goes out of sync. It turns out this was exactly the same file and some wag had changed the name.

Some people gave up waiting and watched the out of sync episode. Those who waited had their patience thrown in their face. When a third messed-up version was posted, the user comments started getting increasingly hostile:

"Can some cunt put up a version that isn't out of sync?
Fucking amateurs! I don't want to watch some out of sync piece of shit and I doubt any other motherfucker would want to either you wankers!"

It seems that some TV programmes really are addictive. And giving people an out-of-sync version of Lost is like offering methodone to a heroine addict – it’ll do, but they’d rather have the real deal.