The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting story today about two men from Brisbane who were arrested for allegedly running an offshore BitTorrent video sharing site.

According to the article:

Investigators allege the pair made $10,000 a month by managing an illegal offshore video sharing website with 400,000 international members, including thousands of "VIPs" who paid up to $10 a month for access to direct downloadable media.

It is alleged the men facilitated the transfer of more than 10,000 terabytes of information, equivalent to 14.3 million copies of videos and television programs.

I think the article misrepresents the true number of individual TV shows and movies that were actually pirated by the two men.  If the total transferred data amounted to 10,000 terabytes, it could’ve only been a few hundred videos transferred to several thousand peers.  If the pair were only making about $10,000 a month for $10/month service fees, they probably only had around 1,000 subscribers.

The trading of videos online will likely subside once more fairly priced and legitimate services are available that allow consumers to download or stream videos legally. 

My personal favorite at the moment is Netflix Instant.  If you’re an Xbox Gold subscriber, and you have a Netflix account – even one that only allows one DVD out at a time – you can watch Netflix Instant direct from your Xbox.  The video quality is fantastic, there’s a growing selection of current movies and TV shows, and the great thing is that it’s all legal.

Why else would members of this site be willing to pay $10 a month to download all the movies and TV shows?

Filed under: Consumer Web, XBOX