In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film about a pandemic, Contagion, is seeing a spike in viewing. The problem is that Contagion isn’t streaming anywhere — especially in the United States — leading to an increase in rentals on iTunes and torrent downloads.
The Verge partnered with TorrentFreak to examine the rise of people downloading Contagion between January 1st and March 4th. The data is estimated by looking at IP addresses that share the movie, according to TorrentFreak’s site editor Ernesto. Analysts look at torrent tracker data, “which is public and broadcasts downloading IP addresses,” he told The Verge. The data isn’t complete or exact, but torrent statistics never are. Think of them as close…