piracy

Game of Thrones Was This Spring’s Most Pirated Show

Photo: HBO

Congratulations, you thieving nerds: TorrentFreak estimates that Game of Thrones was illegally downloaded 5.2 million times per episode for March through June, handily beating The Big Bang Theory (2.9 million downloads per episode), How I Met Your Mother (2.85 million downloads per episode), The Walking Dead (2.7 million downloads per episode), and Hannibal (2.1 downloads per episode) to become the season’s most frequently stolen series. (This is not the first time this has happened: GoT was the most pirated show for all of 2012.) Interestingly, GoT is the only show on the list that is downloaded almost as often as it watched on TV. About 5.5 million people legally journey to Westeros and Essos each week, while 20 million — about seven times the number who download — go directly to CBS to view The Big Bang Theory. It seems appropriate, since GoT is mostly about taking things.

GoT Was Spring’s Most Pirated Show