Games Of Thrones Sets Piracy Record

Sunday’s season finale of Game Of Thrones set an unusual record.

Once again the show has broken all records for illegal viewing, clocking up more than 1.5 million downloads during the first 12 hours. The news is unlikely to bother program maker HBO all that much: famously, Jeff Bewkes of parent company Time Warner described Game of Thrones’ status as the most pirated show of 2012 as “better than an Emmy”. But it will be grist to the mill of other content owners concerned over piracy. According to TorrentFreak, which compiled the figures, another six million people are expected to download The Children over the coming days, raising the number above the current official viewing figure of 7.1 million. The episode also created the largest BitTorrent swarm, or number of people sharing the same file simultaneously – over a quarter of a million at one point.

Most of the piracy took place in countries where the show is legally available.