Orange Is the New Black' Season 2 News & Netflix Update Online: Piracy Downloads Soar in Second Season
Netflix's "Orange Is the New Black" is so hot that everyone wants to see it, including the people without Netflix accounts.
It's no surprise that fans that don't have Netflix accounts have turned to piracy sites to satisfy their "OITNB" fix.
Variety reported that since its premiere on June 6, the second season of "OITNB" has been illegally downloaded by 55,668 individuals over peer-to-peer networks in the four biggest markets for piracy (U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia).
Last year, within the first two days of the series' premiere, "Orange Is the New Black" garnered only 3,850 illegal downloads.
"Orange Is the New Black" rose to popularity only after its premiere last July. That explains the huge difference in piracy numbers from Season 1 versus Season 2.
Though popularity for the prison show has certainly skyrocketed since its debut, "OITNB" still doesn't hold a candle to Netflix's "House of Cards" or HBO's "Game of Thrones" in the piracy department.
According to Complex, the most recent season of "House of Cards" attracted 90,841 illegal downloads within the first two days of its second season, and "Game of Thrones" pulled in a staggering 1.17 million downloads during the first 15 hours of its Season 4 premiere.
Though no television network or streaming site likes piracy, they still acknowledge piracy as a way to track popularity of a particular show.
Variety reported that Netflix disclosed that it monitors piracy to help determine what content will be popular in a given region.
"When purchasing series, we look at what does well on piracy sites," Netflix Vice President of Content Acquisition Kelly Merryman told Variety.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that piracy tends to drop dramatically after Netflix launches in a given country because of Netflix's fast, convenient and user-friendly streaming abilities.
"Netflix is so much easier than [using BitTorrent]," Hastings said. "You don't have to deal with files, you don't have to download them and move them around. You just click and watch."
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