Assorted Afflatuses

On Tuesday I made my first foray into the world of online peer-to-peer file sharing. It was not pleasant. In fact, I now firmly believe that the MPAA, the RIAA and any other groups that represent copyright holders have no reason to worry about the so-called file sharing threat threat. The countless millions (or perhaps even billions) of dollars dispensed by such organizations to sue teenagers for downloading low-quality pre-release copies of Bring It On 3 would have been better spent trying to make better movies.

At any rate, I tried to download the first season of 24, which took an exceedingly long time. In fact, it took nearly three days of continuous, slow-moving downloading to put the 7.5 GB file onto my hard drive. By my calculations, it would only have taken about ten hours, had the download moved at the full speed of my DSL.

But the fund did not end there. When the download finally finished, I discovered that the file did not contain twenty-four episodes of 24, but rather twenty-two episodes of Gilmore Girls. I will admit that Gilmore Girls was not as insipid as I had imagined, however, it has a certain deficit of edginess.

I have no idea why the movie studios are trying to curb this illegal downloading. If my experience is typical, then anyone who tries it will probably arrive at the same conclusion: spend the $35 and download the season on iTunes.