Piracy sites help Netflix to decide what shows to purchase

Netflix has begun its official rollout in the Netherlands. The company’s primary goal is to amass a substantial user base, similar to what it has in the United States. As a result, the Netflix team needs to assess what its viewers want to watch; and one such strategy is to monitor a show’s popularity on piracy sites.

According to TorrentFreak, Netflix understands that pirate sites are quite possibly their biggest competitor. After all, people have no need to subscribe to a streaming service when identical content is freely available on the web. But those looking for a legal alternative certainly appreciate the convenience Netflix provides.

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

So when Netflix is shopping around for a new series to pick-up, they take a look at what’s popular on local BitTorrent networks. For example, Netflix recently bought the rights to Prison Break; a series which Kelly Merryman, VP of Content Acquisition, says is “exceptionally popular on piracy sites.”

Although pirate sites might initially be considered Netflix’s main rival, they’re also potentially keeping them afloat. Not only does illegal content create demand for better quality content, but it puts television networks in a difficult spot. Fully knowing that users can simply download their programs for free, it’s sometimes better for the cable company to strike a deal with an established streaming service, even if its profits are undercut by the middleman.

That being said, Netflix doesn’t exactly have an easy time trying to secure licensing rights, either. For instance, even though Game of Thrones is currently the most pirated TV show on the planet, HBO refuses to relinquish any of its rights to Netflix.

Either way you look at it, the impact that Netflix has had on the pirating industry is profound. After launching the service to Canada just three years ago, the nation’s BitTorrent traffic has dropped by an astounding 50%. It’ll be interesting to see if Netflix can recreate these results in the Netherlands and beyond.

Witcher 2 devs suing pirates, claim to be sure who downloaded illegally

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was very well received last May, gathering mostly positive reviews with an aggregate critics' score of 90/100 according to our Product Finder. The game was made exclusively for the PC -- and unlike many others a console version is in the works for later release and not the other way around -- and since the launch of patch 1.1, The Witcher 2 was made DRM-free for all.

That certainly spells confidence on the platform, as developer CD Projekt is said to have sold over a million copies of the game thus far. That's not only thing they feel confident about however. The Polish developer is going after pirates of the game, claiming that only people who they are sure downloaded a copy of the game illegally are receiving a threat of legal action, not very different to the pay-up-or-else scheme used by other organizations that track torrent downloads.

“We’re addressing only 100% confirmed piracy causes that are 100% possible to prove,” said Michal Nowakowski, CD Projekt's VP of Business Development to PC Gamer. “We are not worried about tracking the wrong people. As this is the trade secret of the company working on this, I cannot share it. However, we investigated the subject before we decided on this move, and we aware of some past complications. The method used here is targeting only 100% confirmed piracy cases. No innocent person was targeted with the letter so far. At least we have not received any information as of now which would indicate something like that.”

Reports indicate that in the past few months several batches of notices have been sent in Germany asking for a settlement equivalent to 911,80 euros ($1190) as compensation for illegally obtaining a copy of the game.TorrentFreak estimates over a thousand of these letters have been sent in this country alone, while worldwide piracy for The Witcher 2 (measured in BitTorrent downloads) is around 2 million copies.

It's also known CD Projekt is relying on an unnamed third party to monitor downloads and target individuals based on that information, though once again the company is claiming 100% accuracy on who is receiving legal threats. Michal Nowakowski said to PC Gamer they haven't had to go to court yet on any of these cases and that the real settlement sum asked from pirates is lower than the figure circling around the web.