Game of Thrones more popular than ever, but piracy seems to have stabilised
Image/Photo Credit: HBO
The season finale of the sixth season of Game of Thrones has failed to break the all-time torrent swarm record, but it will still most likely end up being the most pirated TV show in 2016.
According to data gathered by TorrentFreak, over a million users downloaded the season finale just hours after the torrent was uploaded. At one point, more than 350,000 people were sharing a single copy of the episode, the most for any content this year, but not enough to break the all-time swarm record. The season premiere also failed to break any records.
Total downloads are expected to be similar to that from last year, perhaps even down a little.
The reason for the lack of a rise in piracy, despite the show's popularity growing, could be due to the greater number of legal means to watch the show, as well as HBO's more proactive actions on GoT piracy. HBO's actions have resulted in popular torrents being taken down, with new torrents taking their place, and thus scattering the swarms and dashing any chance of new records being broken.