Pirating Of Fox Shows More Than Doubles After Delaying Hulu Availability.

Last week, Fox changed their fancy licensing voodoo legislation prohibiting non-paying Hulu users from watching new episodes of their shows until eight days after the air date. These much aggrieved users, how’d they react? Motherfuckers pirated. Pirated like you wouldn’t believe.

Techcrunch:

A week ago, Fox changed its licensing rules so that non-paying users of Hulu would be unable to watch new episodes of their shows until eight days after their air date. Put on your analyst hat and think about what effect this might have on, say, piracy of those shows. Did you determine that it would increase piracy? Congratulations, you are a better judge of consequences than Fox. Because piracy of Fox shows went up by a huge amount during this last week.

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So what do they do? They google “download ______”, and halfway down the first page is a public, well-seeded torrent that downloads the whole episode – with no ads – in minutes, and allows them to use their favorite media player or take it with them anywhere. Wow! What a great way to watch your favorite shows!

TorrentFreak tracked the piracy of two Fox shows after the delay went into effect. Hell’s Kitchen downloads went up by 114%, and MasterChef went up a massive 189%. That number will only go up as more people discover the limitation.

I don’t use Hulu, but I imagine it’s a handy service to have if you don’t have a DVR or OnDemand. I also imagine that if you’re handy enough to use Hulu and you can’t get that newest episode of Fringe for eight days, you’re capable of torrenting that son of a bitch. I know I sure as fuck wouldn’t wait.