Bootleg the Puppy
The TV you want, when you want it, all on your computer screen...
      by Rachel Hyland

Buffy graduated early for those in the know with IRC.

A source so secretive that she prefers to be known only as "A," from the upper-echelons of one of these ultimate download sites, speaks:

"It all started with a guy named Flagg," she says of the well-hidden Buffy IRC channel that she helps operate. "He did AVI (Audio Video Interleave) clips; then Reptile007 and Turbovex were the first ones to do full episode encodes. They had them on the web [but] the sites all got too busy and were shut down -- the servers could not handle the traffic." This led to the channel's inception. A. reflects back on these halcyon times. "Oh man, there were like five people in here," she recalls. "I would come and go -- it was dead. This was when people could still get the episodes off public web sites. Then: the 'letters.'"

The "letters" are the sheaf of "Cease and Desist" orders 20th Century Fox lawyers sent out to Buffy website hosts and owners in mid-1999. The orders were designed to put an end to the shameless theft of fun that some Buffy websites had dared perpetrate by offering Buffy video clips for download. But while the company may have been successful in putting a stop to such lawless shenanigans out in the public arena, they did not stop -- could not stop -- those same shenanigans from taking to the underground.

"When 'L' Day came," A. explains, "and all the sites were shut down, people started trickling in. The word started spreading [about the secret IRC chatroom]... and then came our big moment -- 'Earshot.'

"Oh man, I will never forget that week," A. reflects in wonder. "'Earshot' was aired once in Canada, then the WB pulled it. One of the people on the right side of Canada taped it and sent it to one of our encoders; we were the only people that had it. It was crazy! We were throwing that encode everywhere: Usenet, the Web, anything that would relieve traffic..." As for how many people actually saw that bootleg encode of the suppressed episode, "I couldn't begin to guess," says A. "Once we got it on Usenet and the web, it was public access. We even made the official posting board! Thousands downloaded it. Then," she adds, "they pulled 'Graduation Day Part 2'," referring to the cliffhanger Season 3 finale of Buffy. "Same thing. And after that we became the source."

Hey look, it's James Marsters! C'mon, you knew he'd be here somewhere.

The source, perhaps, but certainly not the only one. Web-available episodes of TV shows are everywhere, if only one knows where to look. And if one knows how to find out where one should discover where to look. Which is not nearly as simple as it sounds.

These hidden sites are usually known only to serious fans, and are jealously guarded Official Secrets. Like Bond, James Bond, or... some other spy guy, one must put in the hard work to make it into the Forbidden City. This is not information that can be gained through a simple perusal of search engine results or a query to AskJeeves. Prohibition-era Speak-easies were less security-conscious -- and all they required was a password.

Just as the surest path to Heaven is living clean and knowing your prayers, the surest path to TV fan Heaven is... posting clean and knowing your quotes. The method most people seem to use to find their way to a download site is to become known on a Message Board. Every TV show has them, and they are all hotbeds of intrigue and drama. Perhaps someone posts a message reviling Maria's vacant cow-eyes. Then another someone whips back a witty retort, with passing reference to Isabel's impossibly immaculate coiffure. Then a third person jumps in to ask what the hell is going on with Michael's hair, anyway... and before any of them know it, they're regulars on The Board and have even come to consider themselves friends. One of them then inevitably hears about whichever Roswell download channel that particular Posting Board or website is affiliated with; and soon they're all downloading the latest episodes from the web -- because the two or three days they'd have to wait for the next installment would be far too much for them to bear -- while further discussing the vagaries of the Roswell inhabitants' personal appearance. (These people actually exist, by the way, in every fandom. No one you know, though.)

But Posting Boards are not the only way to discover the magic key that will open the door to the wondrous world of downloadage. Some find the sites through friends, or the ICQ message service, or even through loitering in random IRC channels until finally asking the right questions. But it can be a long and painful process just to get to the sites and channels -- and then there is the tricky matter of being allowed to remain there. "I was lucky that when I first got there," says Australian Autumn, now a download site regular. "I met some nice people. Some of the newbies are unlucky and meet snooty, cliquey, rude people -- an unfortunate trait of many net users. People who use the Internet a lot take a lot of procedures and knowledge for granted; it's harder for them to go back to what it was like being new."

Indeed, the instructions are often unclear at some of these sites -- and the penalties severe. "I've seen people kicked for speaking French," says Autumn of her particular, English-only site. "Some of the rules are a little bit annoying sometimes." But in A.'s Buffy channel, the quality of mercy is quite poor -- perhaps industrial grade. "What we have here is a privilege," she says sternly. "You don't follow the rules, we don't let you in."

But what about if one does follow the rules. If, say, a WB-deprived Charmed fan were to somehow get to a Charmed download site, to follow all of the directions and to obey all the local, state and federal statutes of that fair community -- what then?

Here's where it gets really complicated.

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