‘Game Of Thrones’ Most Pirated TV Show Of 2012

HBO’s Game of Thrones has an enormous fan-base, but, according to a new report, not all of the show’s fans are honest.

According to Torrentfreak’s annual survey, Game of Thrones was the internet’s most-pirated show in 2012.

BBC reports that one episode of the series got 4,280,000 illegal global downloads, which is slightly more than the estimate number of people in the US who watch the show. Overall, the internet only saw a “small increase” in the amount of illegal pirating. The previous two years have seen a “leveling out” of pirating.

Greater efforts to shut down or block websites that provide pirated materials have been implemented this year as well. Investigations by US, Mexican, and Ukranian authorities led to the complete shut-down of two of the best known torrent sites on the internet earlier this year: Megaupload and Bit Torrent link site Demonoid.

Newzbin2, which aggregated links to pirated material from Usenet forums, also closed its doors after the UK forced ISPs to block access to the site.

The fact that Game of Thrones is the most-pirated show of 2012 probably has something to do with the fact that HBO does not allow streaming services like Netflix or Hulu to broadcast their shows. To watch any HBO program online, you need to use HBO Go Online, but, again, it’s only available to cable subscribers.

Still, Thrones is in no danger of cancellation due to high pirating or low viewership. It is still one of TVs most popular shows with audiences and critics, so maybe they’re satisfied that people seem to like watching it and talking about it online.

Then again, HBO could come out tomorrow calling on the fed to look into Game of Thrones theft in some sort of misguided effort to double their viewership.

Do you download episodes of Game of Thrones illegally?