Game of Thrones Sets Piracy Record

HBO‘s emphasis on limiting the piracy of its shows, apparently, isn’t working yet.

According to a Variety report, the fifth episode of the fifth season of Game of Thrones, “Kill the Boy,” set a record for the most pirated downloads shortly after the episode aired on HBO.

In just 12 hours after airing, “Kill the Boy” was downloaded 2.2 million times, according to the report. It shattered the previous record of 1.9 million downloads in a 24-hour span.

“Why so many downloads? you ask. Well, it’s pretty simple.

One, Game of Thrones is the biggest and best show in the world, and this season has been awesome so far. I think that’s the main takeaway here.

Two, the first four episodes of this season were leaked before the season premiere and were viewed, likely, millions of times, as well. This was the first episode of the season that hadn’t been available to pirates (argh!), so it makes sense why they’d download this episode, right?

Obviously, people love when they can get stuff for free, and we’re living in a time period where technology has lapped the TV industry to the point where the industry cannot, no matter how hard they try, stop people from watching their shows.

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HBO has made efforts to stop piracy, including pressuring Internet Service Providers to warn users against illegally downloading their shows, expanding their service through HBO Go and HBO Now, and a host of other things.

When it boils down to it, though, Game of Thrones is just a ridiculously good TV show. In one way, the millions of downloads should be somewhat flattering to HBO. It proves they are doing something very right.

Let’s be honest; it’s not like anyone was illegally downloading the Fox show Dads, you know?

As HBO expands HBO Now abroad and makes it even easier to have access to their service, I assume those millions of illegal downloads will decrease.

Only time will tell.

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