'Arrested Development' Piracy Rates and What They Mean for the Industry [Opinion]

"Piracy is killing the entertainment industry," seems to be the mantra of Hollywood since... well, as long as anyone can remember. Studios and distributors seem intent on reaching the conclusion that as long as piracy exists, it will be the preferred option for many consumers. After all, it's free.

Now that television programs are reaching the budgets and storytelling scope of feature films, they're also being roped into this argument. It's not hard to see why. Jump on any torrent website and you'll be able to nearly instantly find any and every episode of shows like "Breaking Bad" and "The Walking Dead."

An interesting thing happened over the weekend though. The much hyped, much anticipated return of "Arrested Development" skipped over a TV debut and went straight to Netflix. The surprising result? According to TorrentFreak, a file sharing and BitTorrent news source, the piracy rate was far lower than popular cable shows.

For example, "Game of Thrones" was downloaded over 1 million times in the first 24 hours after the third season premiered in March. "Arrested Development," on the other hand, was only downloaded 100,000 times.

Unlike Netflix, HBO's online streaming system is only accessible by those who are existing HBO subscribers. To have an HBO subscription, you must first have a premium cable plan; and for a lot of those in the younger demographic, that is way too high of a price for the handful of shows you might be interested in.

This offers three options for those who can't afford a hefty cable fee. One, they can "borrow" a password from a friend. Two, they can illegally pirate the show. Or three, they can simply not watch it. No matter which option they choose, however, the end result is the same: they're not paying anything for it.

Netflix on the other hand costs only $7.99 a month (compare that to the $50+ for a digital cable subscription), and is easy and convenient to access on a TV, computer, or mobile device. It's no surprise that a simple and straightforward charge of $8 a month is a far more feasible choice for many consumers.

The conclusion seems to be clear, if not already obvious by the long history of internet piracy. The solution to the piracy problem isn't to fight pirates. Downloading is a symptom, not the cause. The real solution is to simply produce a better product.

Viewers have shown that if a service can provide them with a convenient way to reach their content, viewers are more than willing to pay for it. Make them jump through too many hoops just for the privilege of watching a show though (and only when you say they can for that matter), and they just might find that searching for a download is the easier option.

Will this stop piracy completely? Of course not. There will always be a segment of the population that wants to freeload. But let's be frank here, those people are always going to find ways around an anti-piracy system. We're talking about the vast majority of viewers who are more than happy to shell out a few bucks to enjoy some good entertainment. Hey content providers, we're here, take our money!