Andre Yoskowitz
23 Aug 2011 12:23
Starting last week, Fox began delaying posting its new shows on Hulu for 8 days, unless you have a Hulu Plus subscription or are a DISH Network subscriber.
TorrentFreak is now saying that this new mandate is already causing a large spike in piracy.
Shows such as Hell's Kitchen and MasterChef have seen piracy increase 114 percent and 189 percent, respectively, in just the first 5 days.
Other, more popular shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons are likely to see even bigger spikes in piracy, when they return for new seasons.
It should be pretty obvious to media companies by now that if you are not making shows available for free online, users are not going to just stop watching them, they will use whatever methods possible to watch them as soon as they can.