Citing a study from anti-piracy service Irdeto, Hollywood Reporter claims that episodes of Game of Thrones were illegally downloaded 7 million times in a three month period this year. Pirates love dragons, obviously.
Those numbers are up from last year, when the show was downloaded eight million times in 12 months, according to Torrent Freak. In the same report from Irdeto, the company said that Game of Thrones came out far ahead of its popularly pirated rivals, which were “The Walking Dead (5.7 million downloads), Breaking Bad (3.8 million), Vikings (3.4 million) and House of Cards (2.7 million).”
It makes sense that these shows are the most pirated — all of them require at least basic cable or a Netflix subscription. Plus, we all know that pirates love to watch zombies, sword fights and sociopathic politicians.