Netflix’s Arrested Development sees 100k illegal downloads in 24 hours

Fans of Arrested Development may be immensely grateful to online video service provider Netflix for resurrecting the show, but apparently not enough to stop downloading it illegally.

PaidContent cites TorrentFreak editor Ernesto as saying that the cult series had been dowloaded more than 100 thousand times less that 24 hours after it went live on Netflix.

While that number is considerably lower than the million or so downloads the Game of Thrones season premiere saw in April there are a couple of things worth bearing in mind. First Arrested Development has always been a cult series, and only had six-million TV viewers at its peak. Secondly shows like Game of Thrones often aren’t available through legal means until the day after they air, if it all.

It’s an interesting problem for Netflix to have. After all, the fact that it’s made all the episodes available at once and on demand was meant to mitigate some of the reasons people turn to piracy. It’s worth bearing in mind however that Netflix is currently only available in the US, Canada, Latin America, the UK and Northern Europe, which means that piracy is the only way for a number of people to view the show.

Pure download numbers also make it difficult to analyse whether a service like Netflix could be successful in curbing piracy. A more accurate metric might be how pirated downloads of the show compare with legitimate views.