For those in Victoria, the hype leading up to the release of Melbourne based and filmed TV series underbelly was dealt a blow when a court injunction prevented it from being aired as planned.

With huge spending budgets allocated to the promotion of the Aussie drama with a high class Australian cast, the biggest plug came in the form of the controversy of it not being available to air in Melbourne. The injunction, rather than altogether restricting Underbelly from being seen in Victoria has lead to massive numbers of illegal downloads of Underbelly via the internet.

Underbelly is based on real-life events of the Melbourne underworld between 1995 and 2004. The actual events of Melbourne’s underworld war have included deaths, murders, drug charges, charges again police officers, corruption, bribery, extradition and weapons charges. The basis of Underbelly, as well as real events, is the expose journalistic book Leadbelly: Inside Australia's Underworld, by John Silvester and Andrew Rule, journalist form The Age.

With Melbourne being the home of the storyline, it’s not hard to understand why so many Melbournians are rushing to download Underbelly episodes.

The main characters of the series are Lewis, Mark and Jason Moran, Mick Gatto, Alphonse, Gangitano, Mario Condello, “The Russian”, Carl Williams, Tony Mokbel and Benji Veniamin, as well as the Purana Task Force, the police arm that was investigating the gangland wars. Another attraction of the Aussie crime series was the high profile cast including Vince Colosimo, Rodger Corser, Caroline Craig, Alex Dimitriades, Gyton Grantley, Martin Sacks, Damian Walshe-Howling and Callan Mulvey.

While the first episode of the series was initially made available for download on the official site prior to the airing of the show, the injunction by the Victorian Supreme Court caused this not to eventuate. The ruling was initiated by Melbourne lawyer George Defteros who, while cleared of charges, believed that he was identifiably depicted in the miniseries and accused the series and it’s producers of defaming him by implication. While this case was dismissed, the Director of Public Prosecutions initiated an injunction believing that the series could viably prejudice a trial jury of a related case, to be held later in 2008.

This injunction however is not enough to halt the illegal download of Underbelly by Melbournians who feel ripped-off. Underbelly episode downloads from Ep. 1 -10 are available from many illegal torrent sites across the internet. Authorities, including the Nine Network are investigating the sites providing downloads of Underbelly.

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