Piracy continues to be a major area of concern for Game of Thrones, which was the most pirated television series of 2013, a title the series took last year as well. Breaking Bad, which came to an end this year, was the second-most pirated show of the year.
TorrentFreak, which tracks piracy activity, said today that the HBO fantasy series’ season finale was downloaded 5.9 billion times on BitTorrent. The site said in June that it was the single most pirated episode in history and racked up 1 million downloads in just 24 hours.
Game of Thrones and other HBO shows have to deal with piracy since they are all exclusive to HBO subscribers. Even Netflix does not carry the premium network’s programs. The show was the most-pirated of 2012 as well.
Breaking Bad, which airs on AMC, a regular cable network, came in second with 4.2 million downloads. AMC’s The Walking Dead had 3.6 million downloads.
Interestingly, the list even includes shows on free broadcast networks. CBS’ top sitcoms The Big Bang Theory (3.4 million downloads) and How I Met Your Mother (3 million), along with The CW’s Arrow (2.2 million) made the top 10.
Other shows in the Top 10 are Showtime’s Dexter (3.1 million); USA’s Suits (2.6 million); Showtime’s Homeland (2.4 million) and History’s new series Vikings (2.3 million).
image: Amazon