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'Game of Thrones' Tops List of Spring's Most Pirated TV Shows

Chloe Albanesius
 & Chloe Albanesius Executive Editor, News

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Game of Thrones continues to be a favorite for those turning to BitTorrent for their TV fix. According to data gathered by TorrentFreak, the HBO drama was the most pirated TV show of the spring season.

There were an estimated 5.2 million downloads of Game of Thrones via BitTorrent, but as TorrentFreak noted, that doesn't cover online streaming and cyberlocker downloads, so actual pirate levels could be much higher. The show had about 5.5 million U.S. TV viewers during the season, which ran from March to June.

The show's third season premiere in March actually broke pirating records. Hours after the first torrent of the episode was uploaded, the OpenBitTorrent tracker reported that 163,088 people were already sharing a single torrent. More than 110,300 were sharing a complete copy of the torrent, while 52,786 were still downloading, TorrentFreak found.

Game of Thrones was also the most pirated TV show of 2012, besting Showtime's Dexter, which nabbed the honor in 2011.

But lest you think HBO is irked by people pirating its show, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo told Entertainment Weekly in March that the network considers it a "compliment of sorts" - primarily because it hasn't affected DVD sales.

The rate of piracy for Thrones, a sprawling drama based on the novels from author George R. R. Martin, dwarfed that of the No. 2 show on TorrentFreak's list - CBS's The Big Bang Theory, which came in a 2.9 million torrents during the season. The show just barely beat out How I Met Your Mother, also on CBS, at 2.85 million.

While it might seem odd to pirate a TV show that's on network TV and readily available online for several weeks after its airing, the TorrentFreak data is global, so many viewers likely live overseas without access to U.S. network TV shows.

Some new shows made TorrentFreak's list, including NBC's Hannibal (2.1 million downloads), The History Channel's Vikings (1.9 million), and the CW's Arrow (1.85 million).

Rounding out the top 10 were The Walking Dead, The Vampire Diaries, Modern Family, and Revenge.

About Our Expert

Chloe Albanesius

Chloe Albanesius

Executive Editor, News

My Experience

I started out covering tech policy in DC for The National Journal, where my beat included state-level tech news and all the congressional hearings and FCC meetings I could handle. I later covered Wall Street trading tech before switching gears to consumer tech. I now lead PCMag's news coverage.

My Areas of Expertise

Getting my start in DC means I still have a soft spot for tech policy; Congressional hearings can sometimes be as entertaining as a Bravo reality show, for better or worse. But PCMag is all about the technology we use every day, as well as keeping an eye out for the trends that will shape the industry in the years ahead (or flop on arrival). I've covered the rise of social media, the iOS vs. Android wars, the cord-cutting revolution that's now left us with hefty streaming bills, and the effort to stuff artificial intelligence into every product you could imagine. This job has taken me to CES in Vegas (one too many times), IFA in Berlin, and MWC in Barcelona. I also drove a Tesla 1,000 miles out west as part of our Best Mobile Networks project. Of late, my focus is on our hard-working team of reporters at PCMag, guiding and editing their robust coverage.

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