Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world, meaning more people illegally download it than any other. It even broke an all-time piracy record during season 4 when more than 250,000 people shared the same file at the same time.
To combat that, HBO is ensuring the season 5 premier Sunday night on the East Coast of the United States at 9 p.m. is aired at the same time in 170 countries. That means while people here in Florida will be able to watch the much-anticipated show right away, fans in London will have to wait until 2 a.m. and those in Sydney won’t see it until 11 a.m. on Sunday.
The idea behind that is to keep people in earlier time zones from sharing the files on torrent sites before they air in other countries.
According to irdeto, Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world with 7 million illegal downloads between just February 4 and April 6. It beats its next closest competitor, The Walking Dead, by 1.3 million downloads.
According to that study, Brazil leads the pack in downloads with nearly one million. France and the United States follow with nearly 750,000 and 464,000 respectively. The numbers represent a 45 percent increase over downloads in 2014.
But now, with HBO airing the show simultaneously across the globe, time zones don’t matter. Folks in Australia will no longer get to catch the show before us Yanks.
While the move could reduce the number of illegal downloads among those who just can’t wait a few extra hours until the show hits their time zone, it does little to address people who simply don’t have cable.
There is one effort to address that problem. The network – known for being stingy with its content because it won’t sell rights to companies like Netflix and Hulu – is launching an Internet-only service to watch content on Apple products like the iPhone, iPad or Apple TV. The service is $14.99 a month, but fans can get a free 30-day trial to test it out.
Regardless, there are still those in the Internet world who just can’t wait for the premier. The season 5 premier has already been leaked. In just a few hours, more than 100,000 users downloaded the episode. By 9 a.m. that number had grown to more than 775,000.
While there are several downloads listed on one of the most popular torrent sites, The Pirate Bay, none have what are called seeders. That means there aren’t any users with the file available to share data.
The file leaked is rumored to have come from pre-released copies sent to the press. However, it’s in standard quality, not HD.
