If you like Doctor Who, you’re probably rather excited at the prospect of the upcoming season finale. You’ve chewed over the spoilers for the penultimate episode and you really, really want to see what happens.
I bet someone on the internet has the final episode early – right?
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Well, what do you know. Somebody does! Of course, it’s all nonsense – clicking the link takes you to that most common of cookie cutter content, the “fill in the quiz to see the episode” gag (which involves you sending lots of personal information to marketers and random internet people).
I’m almost certain Alientube(dot)net does NOT have the World exclusive on the final episode of the season – sorry to disappoint! In fact, fakeout “uploads” of Doctor Who are rather common.
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As you’ve probably guessed, all of the above take you to sites that want you to sign your life away in return for very little. Another interesting phenomenon is the Doctor Who spamblog, which all pretty much look the same and also do the same thing – ask you to “Download Now!”:
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All of these spamblogs take you to sites like the one below, which claim to offer lots of “movies and TV shows, all of which are free and legal”.
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Before you can get your fix of Doctor Who, you’ll need to sign up (obviously). Here are the charges:
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Unlimited membership is $34.95, 2 years is $32.88 and 1 year is $29.88. There’s also a preticked box for “hi-speed performance”, “download protection” and the ability to “copy your downloads” for $14.95.
Sign me up!
Or, to be more accurate…don’t. Information with regards what you’re actually getting for your money is thin on the ground, but a quick check of the help section clears things up a little:
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“State of the art software will download your file from multiple users simultaneously…”
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“With more than 30 million users sharing more than 800 million files…”
Is it just me, or is the magical service they’re trying to get you to pay $35+ for nothing more than a P2P program? Sure seems like it, and that wheeze has been around for quite some time. Don’t confuse any of these sites with the official BBC iPlayer, and don’t fall for any of these offers – whether they take the form of survey spam or websites that want you to cough up for some P2P action, you’ll only regret it in the end.
Christopher Boyd