The Finale Of Game Of Throne Season IV

Weeks after the fantasy drama was declared the most-watched show in HBO history — surpassing The Sopranos — piracy-monitoring blog TorrentFreak now reports that Sunday's Season 4 finale broke the record for most illegal downloads.

According to the site, there were 1.5 million downloads of the episode within the first 12 hours after its premiere, with more than 250,000 users sharing the same file. TorrentFreak also estimates that the number of downloads will rise to 7.5 million downloads in the coming days.

"There are numerous anti-theft tools we utilize and we have significantly shrunk the international distribution window for original programming to practically correspond with the US premiere. Unfortunately, with popularity comes piracy," HBO said in a statement obtained by Entertainment Weekly. "Good news is Game of Thrones continues to grow significantly and tens of millions are watching the series legally around the world.

 

The Season 4 finale grabbed 9.3 million viewers on HBO on Sunday.