Game Of Thrones Season 2: Most Pirated TV Show Of 2012
The second season has been downloaded illegally more than 25 million times.
The fact that its consistently at the top of the Pirate Bays top one hundred TV show chart seems like a pretty in-your-face leading indicator of the huge volume at which this is being shared.One of the reasons for the piracy is due to people finding it difficult to watch the show legally. In America, if you don't have HBO or don't subscribe to HBO's streaming service, you wont see it. In the UK, the show is only shown on Sky Atlantic which means that if your cable TV is provided by Virgin, BT or via a Freeview box, you will have to wait for the DVD release. Even iTunes only has the first season. John Robinson commented;
"This is absolutely a reaction to the show not being available elsewhere online. It's a very tricky game trying to create this kind of scarcity."Obviously with the hype behind Game Of Thrones, people are not going to wait months to watch a show they can download and watch instantly from sites like Pirate Bay. Until TV shows are released via multiple legal streaming services simultaneously, I cant see an end to this problem. Even with news this week that access to Pirate Bay is to be restricted in the UK, film and TV shows are still going be available to download on other torrent sites. Peoples viewing habits have changed and viewers expect to watch a TV show whenever they choose to watch it. If its not available legally, it doesn't take too much effort to download it illegally. Until studios find a solution to balance viewer expectation with the revenue they receive from exclusivity deals, they will continue to force people to download pirated films and TV shows. Game Of Thrones airs Sundays on HBO and Mondays on Sky Atlantic in the UK. You can read all our reviews of the show HERE.