[SarikayaKomzin]

Those dates are almost always not arbitrary. They're usually due to licensing and distribution agreements. Not trying to dissuade your from torrenting, but it's disingenuous to call those dates arbitrary. They're the simple reality of being in the content business, even originals aren't always fully vertically integrated, but that's certain the direction the industry is moving.

[zeruch]

I'm not being disingenuous, and "the reality of the content business" is mostly arbitrary in many ways (I worked in anti-piracy for years in an irony to trump all ironies, and the industry is on a good day, a bad sub-plot from an episode of Entourage).

Those licensing and distribution agreements are often opaque to the public, and the industry has helped to create a consumer fickleness that perpetuates the bad habits all around.

[sebazzz]

Is there transparency of these dates to the Netflix clients? If not, it is from that perspective pretty arbitrary.