Netflix has recently rolled out a new video streaming service in the Netherlands in a hope to create a massive user base. The company is planning to get the rights to the most popular films and TV shows, and the pirate sites can help it with that. Netflix admits that popularity on file-sharing platforms determines what TV-series the company buys.

Legitimate video streaming service Netflix positions itself as one of the most prominent competitors to the pirate services. However, its illegal rivals offer Netflix valuable information as to what content the company should acquire for its service. A few days ago, Netflix rolled out its service in the Netherlands, admitting that their offering is partly based on what TV shows do well on BitTorrent networks and other pirate websites.

For example, one of the TV shows acquired by Netflix is Prison Break, because it is very popular on local torrents. Netflix CEO confirmed that they are aware of the many people who download copyrighted content without permission through torrent services. However, it isn’t 100% a bad thing, because it also creates demand for the content offered by Netflix.

The legitimate platform claims that though there is some torrenting that goes on, like everywhere else in the world, some of that just creates the demand. Indeed, eventually those BitTorrent users may want to switch to Netflix due to its better user experience than torrenting. For inexperienced users Netflix is much easier than torrenting, because it doesn’t deal with files which you need to download and move around. It is just about click and watch.

The streaming service is trying to convert people who are pirating to get their fix, and it seems to be indeed happening. Statistics says that BitTorrent traffic in Canada dropped 50% after Netflix launched there 3 years ago. The main challenge for Netflix is to license as much content as it can, but this is not so easy. Some attentive observers could have noticed that “Game of Thrones” has become the most pirated TV show after Netflix failed to buy the rights from HBO.