TV Torrents — When Piracy Is Easier Than Purchase

An anonymous reader writes "NBC's recent withdrawal from the iTunes store leaves the millions of Apple's customers who have Macs or iPods without a legitimate way to purchase and watch NBC's content. Online media stores such as iTunes, Amazon and Walmart have never been able to compete with the pirates on price, or freedom and flexibility — as the content they sell is typically wrapped in restrictive DRM. The one advantage that legal purchase offered was ease of use. CNET looks into the issue, and discovers that with mature open-source media players such as Miro supporting BitTorrent RSS feeds, it is actually trivially easy for users to subscribe to their favorite shows. Want to wake up to the latest episode of The Colbert Report, Top Gear or any of hundreds of TV shows automatically downloaded and waiting for you? CNET offers an easy three step guide."

EZTV + uTorrent + XBMC

I simply use EZTV [eztvefnet.org] to find the torrents and RSS feeds, uTorrent [utorrent.com] to download them automatically with its built in RSS reader, and XBMC [xboxmediacenter.com] on my Xbox to watch them comfortably in my living room.

Re:EZTV + uTorrent + XBMC

This is a pretty excellent system, I used it myself for quite a while. In my personal setup I've cut out XBMC by running an HDTV as my computer monitor. With the addition of OTA HDTV broadcasts it's a pretty nifty and affordable setup. The only downfall is the inability to watch live sporting events that are broadcast only on Cable, e.g. Monday Night Football.

The obvious way for the cable company to battle back against this is A La Carte Cable. All the programs I want to watch are on 4-5 channels, but to get those channels in HD I'd have to pay at least $60/mo with with 70 other channels that I'll never watch. Add affordable A La Carte programming and the Cable providers have essentially eliminated any reason for me to pirate shows.

Now to the question of what's affordable: Right now Time Warner Cable offers A La Carte packages in San Antonio [timewarnercable.com] that work out to be about $0.80 per channel per month. Say more than double that for the ability to choose exactly what channels you want, and my 5 cable channels cost me $10 / mo. Piracy problem solved. I get to watch what I want and the Cable company gets my money.

I'm sure there wouldn't be subsidized DVR's and the like under a system like this, but I'd want a cable card in my PC anyway. Though I suppose a fully functional cable card is another pipe-dream.

Fox has there shows online with less ad's then on.

Fox has there shows online with less ad's then on tv and it download a lot faster then an torrent.

Re:Fox has there shows online with less ad's then

I would like to file a bug report... [xkcd.com]

Re:

You forgot to put ads in bold.

Re:Fox has there shows online with less ad's then

Nah, I'd bet it's his native language. A non-native speaker would never mistake words based on what they sound, due merely to the fact that they don't hear them spoken that much, but rather write them. They'd make a whole different class of mistakes, mainly involving omitted or extraneous articles, wrong tenses, etc etc. I'm a non-native speaker and I've seen MANY people trying to speak/write it, so you tend to notice the pattern of mistakes.

So, are you saying that

...there are cases where piracy is not easier than purchase?

Re:So, are you saying that

Usenet binaries?

Re:So, are you saying that

Easier is one thing, faster is another. Honestly if the networks want to stay ahead, they should host their own torrents of the shows, in good quality, with the commercials built into the file and release them before they air. You could have the episode before it comes out on TV and thus many hours before the episode is released by other groups. Though, the folks are just going to download your ep and clip the commercials out. So you might want to imbed them in the show, or do quick ten second flashes of stuff from time to time.

I think they can stay ahead of the curve if they really need to. However, I don't think they will.

Re:

Smart people have found high-quality sources for many years,

This is Slashdot. We tend to be those sources.

Umm, you have that wrong...

Let me just correct your math there:

Buy:
Money Cost = $49.00
Time Cost = ~ 1-2 hours of working time
Misc Cost = Loss of ability to spend or invest that $49.00 in something else
Benefit = DVD box set or other "digital" item.

Steal:
Money Cost = $0.00
Time Cost = 0 as torrents are automated and can be downloaded while sleeping or at work earning $49.00.
Misc Cost = none
Benefit = DVD box set or other "digital" item, $49.00 saved, no productive time wasted, able to invest or spend that $49.00 on something else.

Result:

Buy Cost > Steal Cost

Sorry, Piracy wins again. YARR!

Re:Umm, you have that wrong...

You've got it right. you just forgot to add to the time cost of having to watch previews, fbi warnings, and other nonsense you can't skip through on the BUY side.

NBC Offers Their Shows on Their Site

If you go to www.nbc.com there's a big ol' link right there at the top: Watch Episodes. Why would you pay for or "steal" something that they're giving away for free anyway? Works great in Firefox/Kubuntu for me as well...

Re:NBC Offers Their Shows on Their Site

If you go to www.nbc.com there's a big ol' link right there at the top: Watch Episodes. Why would you pay for or "steal" something that they're giving away for free anyway? Works great in Firefox/Kubuntu for me as well...

Because NBC won't stream videos to foreign IP addresses, and running through an open proxy is rarely fast enough for video.

Re:

Well, the image quality on the video at NBC's website isn't as good as what I've seen on the few random episodes of shows that I've watched on iTunes. And they do take stuff down over time. I remember there was something like a 1-month gap between NBC dr

Re:

"We're sorry, but the clip you selected isn't available from your location.
Please select another clip." -NBC

Also their decent shows are not available at all. They only seem to be posting full episodes of their crap shows. (no Heroes for you!)
They also s

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be...

... to be a TV executive? Is there some kind of test you have to fail, or something?

Clue stick to head of NBC: Jobs knows what he's doing. Trust him. Give him your content, tell him to do whatever he wants with it, and go play golf or something.

Why don't NBC's stockholders revolt against the kind of mismanagement that throws away free money and turns content-distribution power over to pirates?

Re:

"Why the fuck would you do that?" "He's the guy who came up with the iPod" "Oh... "

Re:Seriously, how stupid do you have to be...

Steve Jobs is also the largest shareholder (by a huge margin) of one of NBC's 3 largest competitors, ABC. There may be a little bit of a conflict of interest there.

Don't forget about his ABC holdings

Remember Jobs himself is the largest shareholder (7.5%) of Disney, which owns ABC. The next largest shareholder owns less than 1%.

Not the issue

I don't think most people WANT to illegally download things rather than purchasing them. However, I do think everyone has a threshold at which they'll download illegally rather than deal with the pain of buying something legitimately. For most, that pain is provided by unreasonable prices. For others, it's by formats (DRM) that force you to jump through hoops to be able to watch something you legitimately paid for. So they don't have to make it as easy as the free alternatives, because that's impossible. They only need to make it easy enough that most people will decide that their process is better than breaking the law.

Content providers need to make these downloads as cheap and easy as possible, and they will make money. The more painful it is, the more people will turn to free alternatives out of frustration. Most people that are not generally criminals will only break laws if complying with them becomes too onerous.

Right now, the providers seem to be trying to crack down on free providers and make the legitimate versions ever more restrictive. This is counterproductive, and will only push more people away.

Re:Not the issue

As a musician (and one who encourages people to "pirate" my music and shareit etc.) I've often thought about this. I've come to the realization that the price factor is a "problem" that is going to grow exponentially as time moves forward.

A while ago I did some math and realized that for someone to legally acquire 20GB worth of music at $1 / song it would cost over $5,000. What I've realized is that as hard drive space gets bigger and cheaper / GB, as broadband access spreads and gets faster and as more and more means of illegally downloading media which can be trivially copied and reproduced come to be, the price factor eventually dwindles into obvlivion.

What is a tv show worth to the average user ? What is a song ? Today it might be $0.99 but as people get the means to acquire more and more media with the same investment of hard drive space and time that number is going to keep decreasing. People want more and more as their iPods and hard drives can handle more. And no one is going to spend $5,000 on an mp3 collection. Perhaps I shouldn't say "no one". But no one that I know personally would ever consider spending that much on something that can be had easily for free. $1 for a song, sure that's quite reasonable. But oh wait, I've got a 20GB iPod that I need to fill with these things. $5,000 !? Think of what $5,000 means to me. No more credit card debt. No more dying engine in my car. A new bathroom etc.

So I think we are WELL past the threshold of 'worth paying for'. The minute someone pirates their first song they have just crossed that invisible line where they become someone who "pirates" media. And once you do it once it becomes so easy to do it again. I'm making it sound like a drug, lol. But it's true. If you download a song for free why would you ever go and pay for one ? The only reason I can think to pay for something that you can get very easily for free is if there's a lot of added value for paying for it. And in cases like that people become very selective about what they pay for and what they download for free ... and the media itself is still dirt cheap (meaning you might pay $20 for a HUGE collection of songs when each song costs a fraction of cent when you do the math etc.).

If media companies ever hope to sell what they produce directly to the consumer eventually a single copy of a song or a tv show are going to have to cost fractions of a cent and they're going to have to be very innovative in terms of how they offer it to the consumer. It's going to have to be easier than downloading each song/show/whatever independently and it's going to have to have a lot of other added value.

I'm thinking maybe with regards to tv shows, companies should be experimenting (assuming they're not already, and I'm sure many are) with traditional tv broadcast models that are "upgraded" for the Internet. Meaning broadcast shows over the Internet and make money via ads. As for music, artists should probably look to selling to distributors who distribute their music in huge packages. Then offer their music for free to download to their casual fans while also selling cds/dvds with added value to their loyal fans who will gladly shell out a few bucks to support them directly etc. There's lots of ways to be creative and make money off of media still ... but the per unit / per copy model is dead. The single song or tv show just keeps getting devalued more and more as technology progresses and there's not really any end in sight.

Re:Not the issue

Hell, I'm only up to 50GB and that's with all the stuff I've gathered (and not a one I paid a cent to those greedy a-holes for) long before I got the iPod.

Would you spend $12,000 - $13,000 on your 50GB collection ? Wait you already answered that.

10 years ago, would you have even conceived that you'd have a 50GB mp3 collection ?

I mean, I remember when 4GB - 8GB drives were "freakin' massive!" and that was well into the "Napster era".

Granted, people buy larger storage devices because they don't have much of a choice (I can't count the number of times I only *needed* a small drive but ended up getting something way overkill because it was the smallest drive I could find), but people still find ways to use them. Also, storage capacity and price / GB has improved far faster than bandwidth and other technology. So we are hitting that point where people have more hard drive space then they intend to use. That doesn't mean people will never find a way to use it. Remember 640k is enough memory for anyone and all that jazz...

I mean, do you *really* think that the value of media per unit is ever going to *increase* ? My only point is that the value of an individual song or video continues to decrease as people consume more. And people consume more as technology progresses. Bigger hard drives, faster burning devices, more bandwidth, streaming flash videos etc. have all given people access to more material. And whether or not they were ever going to pay for that media and whether or not media companies are losing money because of it is irrelevant. The point is that the value to the consumer keep decreasing and it will continue to do so for the forseeable future. The Internet is a content delivery platform and with that comes media delivery. The more media someone is exposed to the less value each individual "unit of media" has.

$5/episode

Sure Apple, will not be able to maintain complete control of online store pricing or terms of use. Still, five bucks per episode [macworld.co.uk] is insane for a product of lesser quality than full movies and that is also available for free with ads. It's better for Apple to drop NBC altogether than offer something that will be ridiculed by customers.

"Flexible pricing" would be more appropriate as offering some combination of episodes and movies as a bundle, at a discount compared to everything bought separately.

Wow

What a fucking non-article. "Content provider decides not to allow iTMS (or indeed any, but hey, iTMS is all that's important, right?) users to buy their content online. Solution: Spin. Find ways to justify copyright infringement (look, I didn't call it piracy, I didn't call it theft. Go ahead, deny that it's copyright infringement. You lose if you say "information wants to be free" - information is sick of being anthropomorphized). Apparently it's okay to torrent things from ThePirateBay if you can't get what you want, in the way you want.

Perhaps it's a protest. "Show content owners how much you value what they have to offer - by finding ways of avoiding compensating them for their endeavors!".

I'm serious. I've downloaded movies in the past. TV shows too. But enough with the ridiculous fucking denial, the self righteous indignation of "they took away our 'right' to see their content". You want to break the law to get it, do so. But let's not pretend it's oh-so-evil-NBC's fault.

Re:Wow

Yup, won't argue it's copyright infringement. Never said it was alright, it's still illegal. Morally, well, that's up to you. However, this past weekend I wanted to watch some old TV shows I remembered from years ago. Nowhere to be found through legit channels (DVD releases, DRM-afflicted downloads, etc), so I loaded up good ol' uTorrent and went to town. It's called, "Hey moron, I want to watch this, and you're not interested enough to try to make money off of it." I personally would rather support the content creators, but if they don't provide what I'm looking for, I'll seek other channels. This is one place that I can't really sympathize with the music pirates - nearly all the content they can get, they could acquire legally on a non-DRM CD. I legitimately own all my music - for each MP3, there's either a corresponding CD or iTunes download.

That argument doesn't hold up when looking for obscure 1970s/80s/90s TV shows. While it's copyright infringement in the eyes of the law regardless, I personally find it non-objectionable it if there is no *legal* way to acquire the content I'm looking for. After all, if nobody's providing it, there's no sale being lost and you can't argue I'm "screwing" the content providers out of their cash.

Re:Wow

Oddly, as a Pirate, that's the way I look at it.

I want it and I can get it for free easily as long as I am willing to break with my otherwise sterling principles to get it. I know perfectly well I'm "infringing" and I don't care. I want it, I don't want to pay for it, and I can get it. So I do. End of story.

Strangely, I would NEVER consider physically stealing something from the company I work for or anyone else. When I left my last job I even returned the PENS because they weren't mine. Hell, I WROTE their corporate security policy, with an emphasis on corporate IP. So I'm not a thief or a dishonest person by nature. But when it comes to TV, Movie and Music torrents I'm a complete Pirate. Go figure.

Re:Wow

what would make sense is if the network bigwigs used Bittorrent to trade around their network shows.

They could seed them in that they would have paid ads in them. Who would set up a anti-nbc BT client just to remove ads? I'd gather that the pirates (arr matey) are too lazy to rip out a few seconds here and there.

NBC would get their ad revenue, and pirates would get high quality goods. Win-Win.

Re:Wow

So... If I'm downloading a torrent of a show that is broadcast on standard television... that's infringement, but if I hook up a Tivo or VCR, record it, and then transfer it over to my computer... that's not infringement?

Mind explaining the difference?

Nephilium

Dehydrated grape bricks

That article reminds me of the dehydrated grape bricks my dad told me about. They were sold during prohibition, and they came with a packet of yeast, and a detailed warning explaining exactly how not to add the yeast to the rehydrated grape juice.

TV Piracy is a godsend...

No way I could otherwise watch unsynchronized TV shows (I live in Austria), there isn't even the option of e.g. watching the Simpsons in English here (except waiting a few years for the DVD release). So much subtle nuance is lost and so many glaring errors are made in translation it's not even funny. Very frustrating. My thanks to all Americans making their TV shows available via Bittorrent.

That's why "pirated" content is popular

Not because it's "free" (the beer kind). But because it's free (the OSS kind).

Do I mind paying a sensible price for content? No. Do I mind the restrictions imposed? Yes. Simple as that. Yes, I can afford it. Yes, I do afford it, if the supply matches my demand. Unfortunately, usually it does not. If I cannot store it on my content providing machine and display it on my TV-enabled machine, the content is of no use for me. Simply because I cannot use it. What? Oh, I could store it directly on the machine that connects to the TV? Sure I could. I don't want. You don't provide it the way I want, I don't buy. Simple as that.

What manufacturers (not only in the content business) today fail to see is that you cannot sell things to people that they do not want. At least some people will rather abstain from having something before they are forced into unfavorable contracts or conditions. You provide it the way I want it and I will buy. You don't, I won't.

Free market at its finest.

Missing out on an opportunity

Given the number of TV shows that can now be streamed directly from the networks' own web sites, why don't they take the next logical step and seed their own torrents complete with embedded commercials?

They wouldn't even have to make the torrents particularly high in quality. I suspect that most viewers would be perfectly happy with 352x480 pixel (DVD-lo) quality if it was free and legal. They're not looking for full DVD quality for archival purposes. They just want to see the episodes they missed. And yes, although the commercials could be stripped out, most people simply wouldn't bother.

Sell the higher-quality commercial-free episodes on DVD or iTunes, and everyone is happy. You're no worse off than now, bandwidth requirements would actually go down (TV torrents are invariably HD quality, with corresponding larger file sizes), and advertisers would still reach viewers. The networks could even reseed old torrents with new commercials on a periodic basis.

"Totally Illegal"

Really?

If these are shows that are broadcast over the airwaves, don't you have the legal right to receive them? If you _download_ a show that you already have rights to watch as an OTA broadcast, how is it copyright infringement?

Has this been tested in court?

Re:"Totally Illegal"

If these are shows that are broadcast over the airwaves, don't you have the legal right to receive them? If you _download_ a show that you already have rights to watch as an OTA broadcast, how is it copyright infringement?

It doesn't need to be tested in court: bittorrent means you also broadcast as you download.

You definitely have no license to broadcast.

tv feeds

I use azureus and some custom mininova queries to make sure that my TV shows are always delivered in a prompt manner.

That is the problem though. You never know when the new daily show will come out. Sometimes they are released around 9pm (pacific) and sometimes as late as 4am. There are also issues when multiple groups release, or someone does a crappy job with the encoding. Groups also change filenames, making it annoying to maintain a good regex that isnt going to accidentally try to download some new 1.2 TB pack of simpsons rips or something.

I make enough money to pay for a good service, but I have not seen anything (and I am not going to duel boot or something every time I want to watch a tv show). Some sort of DVR style thing would be nice, without having to pay to get a cable line installed. Hell, you could even distribute over bit torrent so the service provider wouldn't need to pay as much to keep the bandwidth up. All that and simultaneous releases with the actual content, and I would be totally sold. I am sure that it will happen eventually, but until then I think my system works fine.

Re:

1. I have no working TV.
2. TVs with resolutions comparable to my computer are expensive.
3. I don't have a sound system for a TV.
4. I don't have cable.
5. I don't want to dick around with HDMI and whatever other crap I'd need to get a HD signal to said TV.
6.

Re:No legitimate way to watch NBCs content?

1. you have a computer
2. nbc.com has their shows available to stream, on-demand
3. enjoy.

Re:No legitimate way to watch NBCs content?

1. Turn on my computer
2. nbc.com
3. ????
4. Watch on iPod on train to work.

Re:No legitimate way to watch NBCs content?

All the things you list are no excuse for you to steal their content. Think about it: you probably cannot afford a Citroen C Metisse either, but that doesn't mean you get to steal it.

The only question here is whether your downloads constitute a lost sale (and therefore a loss caused by theft) to the publishers, or not. I believe it could be shown that people would buy at least some of the stuff they download illegaly if the illegal sharing were shut down, so they are indeed thiefs, but one might argue differently.

Re:No legitimate way to watch NBCs content?

All the things you list are no excuse for you to steal their content.

Yet it's NOT about money really, it's about convenience. I'll gladly pay for easy to get, not exorbitantly overpriced, easy to play, good quality tv shows. Sadly downloads are often better quality and easier to use than dvds even.

Re:No legitimate way to watch NBCs content?

My question is still this: Is it illegal to "steal" something that was already broadcast, typically in High definition, for free??? I guess you could argue that some of these programs are on chanels I can't get for free, and this technically would be stealing, assuming the broadcaster did have some way of collecting revenue (there's no legal standing for theft if there's no provable loss of value or goods, and in the case of free broadcast TV, good luck proving that)

Then again, if I'm paying for basic cable (or a premium service), and thus authorized to watch these shows in the first place, again, if I torrent them, is it still illegal as I could just as simply recorded it with a VCR, DVR, TV Decoder card, or even just as simply a line-in video feed to a PC...

I thought anything broadcast on TV was covered by personal use rights, as long as it's not rebroadcast for profit or trade of goods. Operating a torrent (if I did) technically would cost me money (in terms of electricty, hardware and time) and I get no goods or money from doing so, thus no profit. It's not a broadcast in that sense and thus not illegal in my interpretation of the laws. Provided the downloaded stream is "as broadcast" unedited, and containing all the appropriate commercials.

Distributing pay-for programming to those who do not have license to receive it would of course be illegal, and distributing illegally pirated or unreleased media would be as well. However, distributing legally broadcast footage to those who could otherwise recieve it already, or the reverse, downloading content you could otherwise get legally, should not be illegal. That stated, it should not be the government (or a companie's) job to make it illegal across the board, but that it should only be punishable if one is proven to be using the technology to illegally receive content. I challenge then the government to do so, prove I have actually downloaded content that I'm not already authorized or paying to recieve.

What NBC is arguing here, as are all other broadcasters who charge for downloads from sites for already broadcast content, is that they loose revenue. Really they're arguing to get more revenue then they would have gotten otherwise. They're arguing for the legal right to bill us for something they already give us for free! Downloading edited versions of these programs (where comercials have been stripped and thus advertisers are losing viewership) is a different arguement as we may actually be talking about misrepresentation of viewership and hence lost ad revenue, but these numbers are based on surveys anyway and are grossly inaccurate as noone can tell for certain what people other than cable TV subscribers watch (there's no feedback from broadcast TV or sattelite systems to pattern viewership or neilson ratings, it's all a guess).

Their argument is that people pay for TV episodes on DVD willingly, and in great numbers. Sure. Many people will not only pay for the convenience, but it's a professionally produced media, saves time, saved disk space, saves bandwidth, and MOST importantly, the commercials have been legally removed. By itself, many will be willing to pay for TV without commercials. Again, not the argument here is not "is it illegal to download,", but is it illegal to download "as broadcast" which is not the same thing.

Re:No legitimate way to watch NBCs content?

While I do think that free TV content should be freely available on the internet, none of the reasons you've given above justify downloading material illegally. Just because you don't want to spend the money doesn't mean you can steal their shit.

Our time is better spent convincing the media execs why making their content available is a Good Idea.

Re:No legitimate way to watch NBCs content?

"Well, maybe I'll buy it but I wouldn't have otherwise if I didn't steal it first"

No I justify it as "there is no way for me to buy it now, if I was able to I would buy it. since I can't I will download it now and buy it once I can."

Oh, yes, and please inform me of how making a copy of something is not theft.

Since the original version still exists it is copyright violation not theft. Legally and ethically there is a big difference. Theft for example doesn't have fair use.

If you got your hands on a copy of my company's source code, you bet your ass you'd be in jail.

Ah yes, the lovely "invalid example" argument. I'd love you to find me a jury that would put me in jail for having the source code for a company after they publicly and officially distributed millions of copies of it to the public (in say newspapers).

And you'd be there for theft. Yeah, you whine on about making copies and what not, but the fact is you are fucking thief.

Well I'm not legally.

You are a criminal.

So are you probably. Lots of fun laws on the books like:

I'd give you the American History X treatment if I meet your pasty ass on the street.

Interesting. You threatened me which is illegal so you are guilty of a crime. So how do you feel mr criminal?

Yeah, I'm an internet tough guy but you are a filthy fucking criminal. You are no better than the drug addict who breaks into cars. You are just feeding a different habit for other reasons.

So is that how you justify illegal vigilante justice?

Re:Zonk

Check your grammar retard.

Ok - I just checked on him, and everything looks fine. His water bowl is full, he's got a fresh copy of Roget's Thesaurus and he's dressed in his "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" pyjamas. Am I missing something?

Re:comma

Punctuation affects the spoken words, so in effect it is spoken. It certainly changes the meaning of the sentence, as does stressing any word in a sentence when speaking:

Check your grammar retard. (why aren't you checking?)
Check your grammar retard. (don't look at mine)
Check your grammar retard. (your spelling is okay, but your grammar...)
Check your grammar retard. (god, you're such a bozo)

The punctuation provides some of that stress, and the last sentence above equates to placing the comma between 'gammar' and 'retard.'

Crap. What has my life become, that I write posts like this? (sigh)

Re:Usenet rules!

Newsgroups are far faster. A 45min program takes roughly a day for me via BT. It takes around 11min with a multi-threaded newsreader.

Usenet? What is this Usenet? There is no Usenet. You do not talk about Usenet.

The truth of the matter is, kids, that newsgroups are old-fashioned, slow, full of spam, and incredibly fiddly to use at all. And nobody really does any more because we're all Web 2.0 nowadays. Don't bother with it. Go back to thepiratebay. Nothing for you to see here. Nope. Nothing. Really.

Re:Usenet rules!

Usenet? What is this Usenet? There is no Usenet. You do not talk about Usenet.

Exactly. The #1 rule of Usenet is YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT USENET.

Re:Since when was purchase easier than piracy?

You fogot step 0, that is "Find out that the show you're looking for is unavailable for legal download. Half a year later, after it gets realeased on dvd, realize it's only in US/UK/whatever and not in your country. Enjoy the fact that ordering the dvd from overseas will take 2 weeks and cost twice the already outrageous price"