Another December, another year of pirating Game of Thrones coming to end.
The beloved and controversial HBO fantasy epic holds the royal station of the most pirated TV show for the third consecutive year, according to TorrentFreak. Viewers pirated the show 8.1 million times on BitTorrent in 2014.
The show is behind HBO’s subscription wall, so it makes sense that it would be pirated frequently. It also set an all-time piracy record, with more than 254,114 peers sharing the same torrent file at the same time.
Game of Thrones was trailed by The Walking Dead on TorrentFreak‘s list, which was downloaded 4.8 million times on BitTorrent, and The Big Bang Theory, which accrued 3.9 million downloads.
With HBO’s standalone service on the way — perhaps even in time for the Game of Thronespremiere in 2015 — the numbers could be smaller next year.
In terms of pirating movies, viewers expressed a taste for the more contentious offerings. The Wolf of Wall Street, which debuted in theaters in December 2013, was downloaded 30.035 million times, according to Excipio, an online piracy tracker.
Excipio’s numbers differ from TorrentFreak‘s, since the former’s accounts for all downloads and the latter’s only includes downloads from public BitTorrent trackers.
The Wolf of Wall Street is followed by the more family-friendly Frozen, pirated 29.919 million times. In third place is RoboCop, though the data accounts for both the original 1987 film and the 2014 remake. Excipio charts those downloads at 29.879 million.
The most pirated TV shows of 2014, per TorrentFreak:
1. Game of Thrones: 8.1 million downloads
2. The Walking Dead: 4.8 million downloads
3. The Big Bang Theory: 3.9 million downloads
4. How I Met Your Mother: 3.5 million downloads
5. Gotham: 3.2 million downloads
6. Arrow: 2.9 million downloads
7. Grey’s Anatomy: 2.8 million downloads
8. Vikings: 2.7 million downloads
9. Suits: 2.5 million downloads
10. South Park: 2.4 million downloads
(Note: TV shows only include downloads recorded by BitTorrent trackers.)
The most pirated movies of 2014, per Excipio:
1. The Wolf of Wall Street: 30.035 million downloads
2. Frozen: 29.919 million downloads
3. RoboCop (both 1987 and 2014 versions): 29.879 million downloads
4. Gravity: 29.357 million downloads
5. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: 27.627 million downloads
6. Thor: The Dark World: 25.749 million downloads
7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier: 25.628 million downloads
8. The Legend of Hercules: 25.137 million downloads
9. X-Men: Days of Future Past: 24.380 million downloads
10. 12 Years a Slave: 23.653 million downloads
11. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: 23.543 million downloads
12. American Hustle: 23.143 million downloads
13. 300: Rise of an Empire: 23.096 million downloads
14. Transformers: Age of Extinction: 21.65 million downloads
15. Godzilla: 20.956 million downloads
16. Noah: 20.334 million downloads
17. Divergent: 20.312 million downloads
18. Edge of Tomorrow: 20.299 million downloads
19. Captain Phillips: 19.817 million downloads
20. Lone Survivor: 19.130 million downloads
Source: mashable.com