Game of Thrones has won or been nominated for numerous awards over the years, but there’s one award that I’m sure the people at HBO would much rather live without, and Game of Thrones just won it for the fourth year in a row. Though it’s not actually an award, Game of Thrones once again had the honor of being the most-pirated television show of the year by a significant margin, with somewhere around 14.4 million downloads via BitTorrent. The second and third-most pirated shows were The Walking Dead and Big Bang Theory, with 6.9 and 4.4 million downloads, respectively.
Game of Thrones has the honor of becoming the most downloaded TV-show for the fourth year in a row. With an estimated 14.4 million downloads via BitTorrent, the 2015 season finale has beaten the competition by a landslide. More than half of the downloads occurred in the first week after the show aired and the total exceeds the number of traditional viewers in the US. The Walking Dead and Big Bang Theory complete the top three with an estimated 6.9 and 4.4 million downloads respectively. Pirates have shown an increase in interest for higher quality releases compared to earlier years. However, the lower quality 480p copies of TV-shows remain by far the most popular among downloaders, followed by 720p and 1080p respectively. Game of Thrones’ top listing doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Earlier this year it broke an all-time piracy record when more than 258,131 peers shared the same torrent file simultaneously. Overall there is no sign that TV-show piracy is declining, on the contrary. The download numbers for the most popular shows continues to rise, sometimes exceeding the number of traditional viewers in the US.
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