Game of Thrones Ranks as Most Pirated TV Show

LOS ANGELES: The HBO series Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV show of the season, with nearly 4 million downloads per episode, according to TorrentFreak, which reports on Internet file-sharing.

The series had 3.9 million downloads per episode. How I Met Your Mother was second, with 2.83 million downloads per episodes, followed by The Big Bang Theory with 2.75 million. Rounding out the top 5 are House and Mad Men, with 1.87 million and 1.8 million downloads, respectively. The remaining top 10 features, in order, are Modern Family, Revenge, Desperate Housewives, Family Guy and Supernatural.

TorrentFreak reports that worldwide hype combined with restricted availability are the two key ingredients for the high number of illegal downloads. It says that airing delays and HBO’s decision not to make the show widely available are two of the top reasons that Game of Thrones is the most pirated.

"It’s clear that HBO (and others) prefer exclusiveness over piracy, which is a dangerous game," the site states. "They might make decent money in the long run by selling subscriptions. However, this limited availability also breeds pirates, and one has to wonder how easy it is to convert these people to subscriptions once they have experienced BitTorrent."