Underbelly the TV series may be banned in Victoria but not the book. We’ve taken the opportunity to promote the Underbelly: The Gangland War, the book on which the TV series is based, at one of our counters. It’s working already – as a talking point and as a sales generator.
Sure it’s opportunistic and a little outside the usual category of product we sell (we don’t sell current issue books) but we figured why not?Â
The promotion shows us as being relevant, having a sense of humor and, of course, being opportunistic.
Since we offer free broadband access at our shop, we could have gone a step further and invited people to come with their laptop and download the show for free but we figured that may be playing too much at the fringe.
so how come Victorians are allowed to buy/read the book but not watch the TV show? Aren’t they based on the same thing?
it is illegal to download the tv show, you wouldn’t want the police to rock up.
Also inviting people to download the show might open you to prosectuion, since the show (but not the book) is banned from being distributed in Victoria.
We don’t monitor use of wireless access at the shop. To be sure though, we are not going to promote free download of the show.
Download of the show would be illegal anyway. Nine has not yet made the show available for download (because of the ban in VIC) so to download it, one would most likely need a Peer-2-Peer program such as Limewire – and this would be illegal too.
One would have to read the judgement handed down, but my assumption would be that the television series was banned because of it’s natural mass audience. Broadcasting it would most likely cause issues with the jury process.
underbelly is the best show ever
I think it’s ridiculous that we are unable to be made aware of the gangland wars that are going on right in our back yard!
Not being able to watch the tv show, and now trying to banned the book is just silly!