Farhad Manjoo sees a sea-change in illegal downloading, mostly because using Netflix's streaming service is just easier:
When you sit down to watch TV, you don't want to do a lot of work. Piracy requires work. Netflix doesn't.
The numbers seem to support that. The network management company Sandvine reported in May that Netflix has overtaken BitTorrent (a top source of illegal downloading) to become the main component of North American Internet traffic. And contrary to Bill Wyman, Manjoo doesn't think the movie and TV industries are making the same mistakes the music industry did:
[E]veryone in the industry is aggressively pursuing digital deals—the first four seasons of Mad Men, for example, [are] available for streaming on Netflix [this week]—which is pretty strong evidence that they don't expect to return to the pre-digital era (which is what the music industry did expect in about 2001). The only fights now are over money, and as firms like Netflix get more subscribers and studios get more desperate as traditional revenue channels dry up, we'll see more deals to get better titles online. Things aren't perfect now, but they're getting better, not worse.
The Dish 