Game of ThronesSeason 7 was a wild ratings success,Watch Hana ni Keda Mono: Second Season Online averaging more than 10 million live viewers for most of its seven episodes, and more than 30 million per episode when factoring in delayed viewing and official streams.
But popularity is a double-edged sword, and no one's toppling Thronesfrom its perch as the most pirated show on television; apparently the penultimate season was illegally viewed over one billiontimes -- and that might be a conservative number.
SEE ALSO: 'Game of Thrones' star warns that some of our favorites will become White Walkers in Season 8According to MUSO, a site which tracks piracy behaviors, Season 7 was illegally streamed, downloaded, and torrented a whopping 1,029,787,668 times (as of Sept. 3). That's an estimate based on a sample size of 200 million devices, so take the numbers with a grain of salt, but boy howdy is it a big one (TorrentFreakpoints out that this doesn't even include the Chinese market).
The download breakdown was as follows:
Episode one: 187,427,575
Episode two: 123,901,209
Episode three: 116,027,851
Episode four: 121,719,868
Episode five: 151,569,560
Episode six: 184,913,279
Episode seven: 143,393,804
All Episode Bundles – Season 7: 834,522
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable In July, Finder.com reported that some 94 percent of Thronesviewers watch the show legally, via HBO cable/streaming, Amazon, Hulu, or next-day purchase options like iTunes. But piracy is, you know, illegal, and its perpetrators may not want to admit to it.
That stat also comes, crucially, from the week of the season premiere, before the season was in full swing. And like most surveys, it was probably based on a sample which ended up barely skimming the surface of the tip of the iceberg (yes, this deserves two analogies).
MUSO co-founder Andy Chatterly released a statement to accompany the statistics:
Game of Throneshas become one of the biggest global entertainment phenomena of today and activity across piracy networks has been totally unprecedented. It’s no secret that HBO has been plagued by security breaches throughout the latest season, which has seen some episodes leak before broadcast and added to unlicensed activity. In addition to the scale of piracy when it comes to popular shows, these numbers demonstrate that unlicensed streaming can be a far more significant type of piracy than torrent downloads.
Chatterly's comments account for episode 6's high numbers; that one was accidentally leaked in high quality by an HBO partner several days before its premiere.
SEE ALSO: New 'Game of Thrones' fan theory adds a delicious twist to this Season 7 deathTL;DR: Thronesis still killing it like the Red Wedding when it comes to ratings, but piracy is Dany riding into battle in on the back of a dragon -- basically unstoppable.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Unless the higher-ups at HBO get their hands on an ice dragon, the playing field will never be even, but with a passionate fanbase prepared to watch the series legally, a raft of Emmy wins, and only one more season to go, they're probably not losing sleep over it.
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Topics Game Of Thrones HBO
