Netflix Uses Pirate Sites To Determine What Shows To Buy

This week Netflix launched its service in the Netherlands, which brought forward interesting information of how the company decides what it will offer to its subscribers.
Each country that Netflix provides service to will have different demands for content. One way Netflix decides what to offer is by seeing what is popular on a variety of torrent and pirate sites.

“With the purchase of series, we look at what does well on piracy sites,” said Kelly Merryman, Vice President of Content Acquisition. Merryman went on to discuss how the television show, Prison Break was extremely popular in the Netherlands which prompted the company to acquire rights for the show.

Netflix executives have previously talked about the decline of pirating once the service was introduced into a new market. CEO Reed Hastings pointed out the easiness of using Netflix in comparison to downloading torrents from pirate sites.

“Netflix is so much easier than using BitTorrent. You don’t have to deal with files, you don’t have to download them and move them around. You just click and watch.”

You can view the full length interview with Reed Hastings below.