I think there's something to be said for variety. If you start a side project to make money you have to commit to spending time on that project. With a hackathon they can just drop something before getting bogged down by things like technical debt. Hackathons are the perfect job for someone who can't commit to one thing. It's like being on a skunkworks team, but most companies don't staff a permanent skunkworks team.

I don't think this is incredibly bold. It just makes sense. All movies are available for piracy already. No one needs to break Netflix's DRM for that. People pay for Netflix anyway because it is so convenient. Torrenting requires time to download, even on a fast connection. Netflix requires a few seconds to buffer. Netflix also provides convenient browsing while Torrenting requires knowing what to watch. It's a smart move to make things more convenient for their paying customers while adding nothing to movie piracy.