Is there an actual article here? I'm seeing only this pull quote and nothing else:

> With the purchase of a series, we look at what does well on piracy sites.

– Kelly Merryman, VP of content acquisition at Netflix

This shouldn't really be that much of a surprise. To me, Netflix has always seemed to be halfway between purchasing a series and pirating it. It'd be interesting to see someone crunch the numbers and see if releasing a series on Netflix decreases the rate of piracy for that particular property. I have a hunch that it does, and if it does the same is probably true for other digital distribution networks, i.e. Hulu, Steam and Amazon Prime.

But what do I know? :)

Analyzing illegal activity is not illegal. I can't understand what all that fuss is about.

I imagine those who are charged with suppressing piracy are creating a fuss. If they do their jobs right they'll be devaluing the product.

Exactly; this just seems like good smart business on their part.

Call me crazy, but I assumed that multiple consultancies were doing this already. There's lots of good information for content producers and marketers waiting to be mined from torrent sites.

This is basically a non-statement. Are they more or less likely to purchase if it does well on a piracy site?

Seems like a very sensible thing to be doing.