【365 Days of Solo Pleasure 3: Secret Office Sex】

65 Days of Solo Pleasure 3: Secret Office Sexinternet will always find a way.

Netflix's new choose-your-own-adventure style episode of Black Mirror, "Bandersnatch," has the online world abuzz with all the different storylines available for the viewer/player of the streaming digital experience.

Overlooked in the discussion regarding which breakfast cereal best kicks off the main character's day lies another probing question. How, exactly, does one pirate a show that has roughly 5 hours of total runtime spooled out over multiple non-linear scenes requiring a specially designed Branch Manager tool to access?

Fear not, internet pirates are on the case.

SEE ALSO: 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' doesn't work on Apple TV and users are furious

While some in media and online have speculated that the format of "Bandersnatch" would make it "more difficult to pirate," difficult does not equal impossible — a fact we are reminded of by a quick stroll to The Pirate Bay and Reddit.

On The Pirate Bay, a notorious torrenting site, we found numerous copies of the episode for download that addressed the specific problems inherent in illegally downloading a choose-your-own-adventure video in a variety of ways.

One file description, for example, explains that out of "the 250 available decision events, this is the default 68 choices Netflix have defined as the default 'linear' timeline." It lists a runtime of 1 hour, 33 minutes and 12 seconds, and seemingly just plays out as a straight film (for legal reasons we did not download the file). In other words, this iteration solves the aforementioned problem of different storylines by simply ignoring it.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Another pirated copy, listing a 5 hour and 12 minute runtime, suggests a different approach. With reports putting the total amount of all the final "Bandersnatch" footage combined at just over five hours, it would seem that this content pirate just decided to go ahead and upload everything as a single uninterrupted movie.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

However, that approach defeats the entire purpose of the thing. Seeing all possible outcomes, one after another, is not the same as making a specific choice and watching the ramifications of that choice unfold — a fact the true sophisticates of Reddit clearly understand.

A Reddit thread titled "Soo.... How the hell am I going to pirate Netflix' Bandersnatch?" asks if "there is a method of preserving the [episode's] interactivity" via a torrent file.

The top response as of this writing, which begins with "Have none of you used interactive porn?", ends just as poorly as it started: with a suggestion to use a flash player.

A different Reddit thread suggests a more technical approach: specially, using the MKV file format to create "editions, file linking and ordered chapters." A helpfully linked blog post explains that, if implemented correctly, these features "let the viewer choose between multiple 'angles' or versions of the video (said versions may or may not be in the same file)."

In other words, the necessary tech to pirate and view a fully interactive copy of "Bandersnatch" is already out there. Someone just has to make it happen. If the "Bandersnatch" format ever moves from gimmick to mainstream, you should expect custom-tailored pirating techniques to move with it.

Of course, you could always take the extremely lazy and technically unsophisticated approach of just watching the reported five distinct endings on YouTube. That or sign up for a Netflix account.

After all, in the end, you get to make your own choice as to how you'll watch "Bandersnatch" (if you watch it at all)...which seems fitting.

---

Featured Video For You

---

Admit it, you've watched almost all the shows on Netflix's most-binged list

---

Topics Netflix

• Entertainment
• Deals
• Life
• Digital Culture
• Games
• Shopping
• Social Good
• Tech

• NYT Strands hints, answers for May 18
• Remembering Margaret Weatherford by Sadie Stein
• The History of English in Ten Minutes, Dystopian Dream Books, and Other News
• Dear Don Draper, Relax Already by Adam Wilson
• Best robot vacuum deal: Save $200 on Eufy X10 Pro Omni robot vacuum
• Capote’s Typewriter by Sadie Stein
• "An Egoless Practice": Tantric Art by Lauren O'Neill
• Adrienne Rich by Robyn Creswell
• Best Apple deal: Save $19 on AirTag 4
• The Spring Issue: Peter Cole by Robyn Creswell

• If you're going to be a no
• Xbox Series X is Microsoft's boxy new console, coming holiday 2020
• Barack and Michelle Obama enjoy a stylish lunch with Bono in NYC
• Facebook waited two weeks to tell employees payroll data was stolen
• People don't like working at Facebook as much as they used to
• Plant recommendation: The world's hottest fern
• Greta Thunberg is 'Time' magazine's Person of the Year 2019
• San Francisco to require permits for companies testing ideas in public
• These are the 5 tech terms you won’t be able to ignore in 2020
• 25% off MeUndies Star Wars™ underwear through 12/20

• Best IPL deal: Save $80 on Braun IPL Silk·Expert
• The Troubadour of Honed Banality by Barry Yourgrau
• Happy Birthday, Gatsby; Good
• "An Egoless Practice": Tantric Art by Lauren O'Neill
• Outdoor speaker deal: Save $20 on the Soundcore Boom 2
• The Grandmaster Hoax by Lincoln Michel
• Happy Birthday, Gatsby; Good
• 314 Bedford by Christopher Bollen
• Astronomers saw one galaxy impale another. The damage was an eye
• The History of English in Ten Minutes, Dystopian Dream Books, and Other News

• This fat bear's before and after photos are stunning
• The History of English in Ten Minutes, Dystopian Dream Books, and Other News
• Secrets Are Lies by Bonnie Nadzam
• The Troubadour of Honed Banality by Barry Yourgrau
• The 10 Most Anticipated PC Games of 2016
• The History of English in Ten Minutes, Dystopian Dream Books, and Other News
• Summer Reading; Formatting Horrors by Lorin Stein
• Adrienne Rich by Robyn Creswell
• Contingent No More
• Death in the Afternoon by Andrea Aguilar