BitTorrent Downplays Netflix's Claim Of Lower Torrent Traffic

A few days ago, Netflix's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, claimed that there was a correlation between the piracy rate in a given region and the availability of Netflix in said region. He says that torrent traffic goes down whenever Netflix comes to town. However, BitTorrent has spoken on the matter and says that Sarandos is woefully ill-informed.BitTorrent says that two of Sarandos' statements are not true, the first being that the BitTorrent application is a synonym for internet piracy, and the second being that BitTorrent traffic drops when Netflix arrives in new markets around the world. BitTorrent says that neither of these statements is true.

BitTorrent says that it's an excusable mistake to connect internet piracy with BitTorrent, but the company claims that it's addressing the public's concern with piracy. However, BitTorrent says that many companies use BitTorrent to "preserve terabytes of data," including Facebook, Twitter, Blizzard, Eve Online, genetic researchers, and even CERN.

As for the piracy correlation that Sarandos mentioned, BitTorrent says that they are not competing with Netflix, and Netflix shouldn't have to compete with BitTorrent. The company says that they are "actually finding ways to support companies like [Netflix], content creators, studios, and other rights-holders directly." BitTorrent went as far as saying that they're "getting ready to roll out an Alpha program" that they believe could drive more traffic to movie streaming services.