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Netflix Watches Piracy Sites to Picks Its Flicks

Well, this is kind of obvious but interesting to hear spoken by an actual Netflix employee: Netflix monitors piracy to figure out what’s popular. “When purchasing series, we look at what does well on piracy sites,” says Kelly Merryman, VP of content acquisition. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings recently said Netflix’s availability in Canada contributed to a dip in piracy nationwide; that claim’s been disputed. Hastings still has the ol’ “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” on his side, though.

Netflix Watches Piracy Sites to Picks Its Flicks