Game of Thrones season 6 sparks a major piracy problem.
On Sunday, the sixth season of Game of Thrones premiered, generating a ton of demand on HBO platforms and on illegal websites. For several years in a row Game of Thrones has been the most pirated TV-show and this year is no different.
After many people failed to grab a copy following a rumored leak version, the first pirated copies of the episode appeared online shortly after HBO’s original broadcast. A few hours later, hundreds of thousands of people illegally downloaded and watched the first episode of Season 6.
According to TorrentFreak, estimates suggest that over a million people have downloaded the episode in less than 24 hours. And not only are people interested in watching Game of Thrones, according to Torrent Freak, GOT fans want to watch the show in HD.
Data gathered by TorrentFreak estimates that after half a day, over a million people have downloaded the episode via BitTorrent. At the time of writing, more than 200,000 people are actively sharing one of the three most-popular torrents.
An interesting trend among pirates is a move from standard definition (480p) to high-definition (720p and 1080p) video. A few years ago roughly 10% downloaded HD copies, which are larger in size, but today this is getting close to 50%.
The download locations for Game of Thrones included the Philippines, Canada, the Netherlands, Greece, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. However, the show is extremely popular in Australia as 12.5% of all illegal downloads came from down under.
What’s interesting is that HBO provided a free month and aired the first episode of Game of Thrones for free. Perhaps the Game of Thrones is more exciting to watch when you illegally download a copy.
Via
