Thread: Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

Something’s not right in the United States.
Increasingly people start to pay for Netflix subscriptions so they can stream movies on demand.
In the States Netflix nearly doubled the number of new subscribers in the first quarter of 2010, from 1.7 to 3.3 million. In total, Netflix now has 22.8 million paid subscribers in the US, which generated a total revenue of $706 million in the first quarter of this year.



It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that Netflix’ popularity has a negative effect on the movie piracy rates in the US.
Although no torrent site has gone out of business yet, Netflix certainly is a serious ‘competitor’ for access to movies.
As we’ve said a few times in the past, the only way to decrease piracy is to compete with it and offer products that are superior to its pirated counterpart. It appears that for (older) movies Netflix is on the right path here.
Movie piracy is not quite gone yet, but Netflix shows that people are willing to pay for access to movies online, even when plenty of pirated copies are available. The next step is to offer easy access to movies in the rest of the world, and get rid of the artificial delays in release dates.

Update: Of course Netflix is not going to stop piracy entirely, as people have many different reasons to use BitTorrent to download movies without consent of the copyright holders. This post was merely to accentuate that Netflix is taking away one of the main piracy motivators (lack of availability) for a group of people. We have some preliminary stats which show that the number of absolute US downloaders slightly decreased over the last year, but more thorough research is obviously needed to make conclusive statements.

Staff Edit: This article originated from TorrentFreak

I never heard of Netflix until now, but I honestly think that there are a lot of people not willing to pay for something that they can get for free.

I don`t know how things work in USA, but in Eastern Europe, not anyone can afford spending money on movies / tv-shows at this point, even though we all respect the persons who produce `em.

Vplay is something similar to Netflix, and I know lots of guys who, even if they have accounts on Vplay, are still 'pirates'..

Those being said, I`m sure that piracy will never die..well, not because of Netflix, anyway.

I say it is content. If I can find it for free, I "get it". If I cannot, I buy it.

Netflix is accessible and comfortable but will never completely replace torrents

well the truth is not that netflix is replacing piracy, but that the economy is tough so therefore a lot of people have done away with cable and replaced it with netflix. At $8 a month who can blame them have you seen the price for cable these days outrageous. I think that cable is the only thing that has gone up through the ceiling after its conversion from analog to digital

I second that....my kids love netflix but not me :)

Originally Posted by posithgir

Netflix is accessible and comfortable but will never completely replace torrents

Piracy will never die, but Netflix is a great way for most people to get many TV shows and Movies relatively cheaply. They are starting to stream more and more of their products which is the best you can do without torrents.

Very true, great article. Any source?

I have Netflix and I still Pirate alot of Movies. I do not think one precludes the other.