In the 24 hours since its release on Netflix, season 4 of the comedy series "Arrested Development" has been pirated over 100,000 times, according to reports by The Hollywood Reporter.
While this number appears daunting, it's nothing compared to shows like HBO's "Game of Thrones." The fantasy drama's season three premiere was reportedly pirated over 1 million times. Other popular shows, like AMC's "Breaking Bad" and Shotime's "Dexter," have garnered more illegal downloads in the past than the cult comedy show's new fourth season.
According to The Droid Guy, reasons for the show's lower torrent numbers could have to do with the fact that Netflix made the show available to viewers all over the world at the same time. Shows like "Game of Thrones" have staggered releases around the world, so fans in Europe have to wait weeks or months after the show's episodes air in the U.S.
Ted Sarandos, who serves as Netflix's chief content officer, told Stuff magazine earlier this month that one of the reasons Netflix originals have such low torrent rates is beacuse Netflix is slowly making torrenting and pirating irrelevant, saying "BitTorrent traffic drops as the Netflix traffic grows."
In response to these comments, BitTorrent's vice president of marketing agreed the accessibility of programming on Netflix could lower piracy, but disagreed that Netflix's growing popularity would contribute to BitTorrent and other torrent sites' demise.
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