Geeks Fight Back! (in Green Guide)

To understand the growth in "home piracy" (The Age, 13/8), one need only consider the contempt with which Australia's massively profitable TV networks hold their viewers. They buy US series on the cheap and proceed to butcher them in a variety of ways. Stokes' Channel 7 is the most egregious: screening episodes out of order (Firefly), out of sync (Buffy and Angel), skipping whole seasons (Scrubs), stopping halfway through (Arrested Development) and repeating the previous week's episode (Stargate). Add the usual timeslot shuffle, watermarking, deleted scenes, months of delay and "crawling" promos during the show - surely I'm not alone in wanting to sack the network!

Ironically, the greedy TV executives are hastening their own demise. The same geeks that favour these cult shows have the wherewithal to cut the networks out of the loop entirely - and share superior product with their friends.