Streams

Just as finals week rolls in and everyone is actively trying to find something to distract from him/her from studying, I thought of how I seem to watch the most movies and TV shows during this time. It is all thanks to people and websites that make them available to stream online.

The purpose of this blog is not to (just) give you links to sites that link to the best streams to your favorite movies or TV shows or live sports games (like SurfTheChannel, MegaVideo, VuReel, Justin.tv, ATDHE.net), but to talk about how it seems to me that control over these illegal-to-post (but-legal-to-view.... for now) video streams has been getting weaker and weaker.

I remember before, I would try to watch all the episodes of a season of a TV show online in the shortest amount of time possible (by watching one right after another, for hours at a time, day after day) for fear that at any moment, they could disappear, deleted for copyright infringement. I remember before, I would have to look for several links to a live stream of an NBA game knowing that one by one, they were about to be shut down, hoping that at least one stream would stay up long enough for me to watch the entire game. Now, it seems times have gotten easier (for me, in terms of watching stuff). No longer do I need TV show marathons every day, nor do I need to search for several links to watch the NBA game (NBA finals anyone?). Links and streams have been staying up and online for long periods of time with shut-downs have become less and less frequent every day.

Have the companies given up in protecting their intellectual properties? Perhaps, they may have found out that their previous attempts at it have been futile? Whatever the reason may be, it has been serving me very well (i.e. distracting me more) in this finals week.