'Game of Thrones' Sets Up New Piracy Record with 3.5 Million Downloads.

Courtsey: HBO

“Game of Thrones,” HBO’s immensely popular series on both on TV and on piracy networks, has again set a new benchmark for illicit downloads in a 24-hour period — despite the premium cabler’s recent launch of a broadband-only service in the U.S.

The sixth episode of “GoT” season five notched 3.5 million individual users on peer-to-peer file-sharing sites, according to piracy-tracking firm Excipio. The previous record was held by episode 5 of the current season of “Game of Thrones,” which reached 3.22 million in the 24-hour period after it hit piracy sites.
The snowballing “Game of Thrones” piracy comes after the net launched HBO Now, a $15-per-month Internet service that doesn’t require a pay-TV subscription, on Apple TV and with Cablevision. Of course, HBO Now is available only in the U.S., .

What’s particularly attractive about “Game of Thrones” to digital pirates? For one thing, the premium cabler’s series was victimized by an early leak of episodes 1-4 of season 5, which apparently were ripped from a press screener and uploaded to torrent sites nearly a full day before the April 12 premiere.

It’s worth noting that the piracy stats Excipio tracks are only for P2P file-sharing sites, so those exclude piracy-streaming sites. That means the number of illicit viewers is likely far higher than the 3.5 million registered so far.

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