The news post today says that "Once again, Cartoon Network and Turner Broadcasting have succeeded in leaking another upcoming episode of Transformers Animated".

Why would they be doing this? Isn't it just hurting them?

My conspiracy theory:

When the decision to cancel TFA was first made, both Hasbro and CN agreed, Hasbro thinking it was a waste of cash and Cartoon Network thinking it would free up space for their new live-action programming .

Hasbro, after seeing the apparent success of Transwarped (I think Wyatt said that the rating were very good) and the fan support, decided to reconsider canceling the show permanently, perhaps just putting it on hiatus. CN doesn't want this happen for whatever reason, and tries to kill the show by any means necessary.

Now, in my limited understanding of the matters, there are three ways to kill a show: a bad time slot, put better things on the air, or make the show easier to access.

Since one wasn't working (we had proven that we are crazy and dedicated enough to wake up at 8 A.M. to watch a cartoon) and two is impossible for Cartoon Network to accomplish, they moved on to door #3: preying upon our hobby. How many of us can honestly say we haven't watched the leaked episodes? I shamefully admit that I couldn't resist. But I know I won't watch the next one that gets leaked And I guarantee that on Monday, the next one will be out online. If the rating for Three's a Crowd are good, expect the next one to be out Sunday or Saturday.

Anyway, just my two cp.

 

As far as I know,
CN isn't the one actually putting the episode out onto the internet.
Someone is sneaking into their files and grabbing the episodes.


Although I haven't been paying attention to the leaded episode threads.

 

That was my understanding too. I don't think CN are letting the episodes out on purpose.

 

Somebody on Wyatt's blog mentioned that CN had put the shows on an unsecured server. Even if it wasn't intentional the first time, wouldn't you have fixed the security problem or moved them to a more secure server?

 

yeah, not on purpose. they just have shitty coding that lets anyone who understands how to change an episode number in a URL to get the files.

there's no hacking involved. you literally just have to change the episode and part number in the file's URL.

 

I don't really like this whole deal.

 

Then wouldn't all the episodes not have leaked?

 

They would have to be uploading the episodes one-by-one or they would've all been released at once.

@Valkysas: Again, wouldn't you've fixed the problem before it happened again?

 

You forgot the fourth method: air the show on Cartoon Network.
They will either play it for six hours a day or six times a year.

 

I think you are reading into this too much. Besides, how many people are seriously watching these early leaks? A high proportion of the fandom, but we're only ever 5-10%, right? That's still a good 90% of the audience left and a lot of us - myself included if they actually showed it here - would happily sit down and watch the proper airings anyway. Youtube is great for an early look, a sneak peak if you will, but it's no way to properly enjoy the show.

I'm honestly looking forward to seeing the show as it was meant to be seen, leaks or no leaks. It is that good.

 

Exactly I watch the leaks, but would definitely watch it again on 32" TV!

 

Me? of course. I'm a responsible webmaster.

true. the link for the most recently leaked episode was actually posted long before the actual file it was linking to was uploaded. when the file was uploaded, the link suddenly worked with no extra work at all. thats how predictable and easy to understand their terrible encryption is.

 

Why? I like seeing these epsiodes leaked and I hope more get leaked.

 

I was told by a casual fan that Networks and anything involving leak these things to create a buzz to get fans talking.

And since they are considering this a "lost" cause CN isn't wasting time worrying about it when they have the "Original" programming set in place to take its place.

 

CN isn't leaking them on purpose. It's just crap encryption they use. ALL their shows have been leaking in this manner. From ben 10, to batman, and more.

 

So does that mean we can expect Predacons Rising in the next few days??

 

-_- Probably unless someone finally got the point across to them to use real encryption to protect their rights.

But's besides the point, we should be using the CN video site to have our voices heard, not youtube and megavideo that don't matter and show us as not really supporting the show.

 

furthermore, they haven't even bothered to take it off of youtube. it is pretty fishy.

 

What's happening is that CN uploads the episodes to their site to add to their player. What they don't realize is how they store them is unprotected and accessible by anyone.
So the second they go up if you just change the basic link to the next ep, all of a sudden it works once they've uploaded it in prep to add to their site. At most you just change the episode number, month, or pt number and it works, or capitalize tfa in it, or use lower case. Nothing more involved than that at all.

There is no conspiracy or reason behind this. It's purely CN being arrogant about how they do things, and not realizing they are indeed leaking it. To be honest, I doubt they've even noticed it's leaked yet. There is no mole, there is no inside source. It's purely CN themselves and has been the entire time. That's why every leaked ep even last season had the CN web stream watermark. Because it was the file prepped for linking on the CN video site. Which is also why the quality is questionable since it's a conversion of the real video into FLV. They are not, I repeat, NOT leaking them on purpose, and never have. But the leaks keep happening because they won't patch the hole in their security. This is why every leak happens in 4 parts unless a user re-edits them together. Because that's how Turner/CN uploads them to their site for their video player.

If they used something like rtmpe like southparkstudios.com uses, these wouldn't happen. That's why CN shows leak like ben 10, batman, etc, and not things like southpark anymore. It's the fact CN is still new to net streaming and hasn't realized how they are doing it is harming their own properties. So the episodes go up as they are prepped to be linked on the video page. So they can go up from anytime from me typing this to minutes before it airs on CN. But the file does go up for them to link it to their video site, which isn't protected at all, and then leaks out to the internet from people re uploading it because CN blocks addy's that aren't USA. As per their distro agreements, since they don't handle foreign airings. That is all that's been happening and has been happening. Nothing more.

I could prove the point again by changing the ep 35 link to 36, which then will go miraculously live once they upload it in prep to link to the site after it airs. But I think I've already proven my point.

 

I say we let them leak. Whoever is getting them probably has most if not all of the episodes by now.