--- title: Game of Thrones Most Pirated Show on TV, Study Finds description: There are 300,000 Game of Thrones downloads each day canonical: https://time.com/3130666/game-of-thrones-online-piracy/ author: Nolan Feeney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-17T14:09:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T09:42:35.862Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Game of Thrones Rules Online Piracy og:description: There are 300,000 downloads daily og:url: https://time.com/3130666/game-of-thrones-online-piracy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltec01dcf48a405c5b/69869fd5f983e773c704f41c/gameofthrones14_102-1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Game of Thrones og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Game of Thrones Rules Online Piracy twitter:description: There are 300,000 downloads daily twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltec01dcf48a405c5b/69869fd5f983e773c704f41c/gameofthrones14_102-1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Game of Thrones_ Takes Crown for Online Piracy  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Aug 17, 2014 2:09 PM UTC  Helen Sloan—HBO  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Aug 17, 2014 2:09 PM UTC **Correction appended** _Game of Thrones_ rules over all challengers when it comes to[ online piracy](http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/08/15/game-of-thrones-is-most-popular-target-for-online-piracy/?mod=e2tw). Just a few months after [setting online downloading records](http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/06/18/game-of-thrones-finale-piracy/) with its season premiere, the hit HBO show has been named the most pirated form of entertainment, the Wall Street _Journal_ reports. Semetric, a company that monitors online media consumption, says that episodes of _Game of Thrones_ at the height of their popularity make up more than half of all television-related downloads on piracy websites that use the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol — that’s more than the total of all music downloads on those sites. While the rise of streaming services has somewhat supplanted music piracy, _Game of Thrones_ is still in high demand. The show ended its fourth season in June — when fans downloaded the finale 2 million times within 24 hours — but there are still approximately 300,000 downloads of the series each day. _The original version of this story incorrectly described the role of BitTorrent in Semetric’s findings._ \[[_WSJ_](http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/08/15/game-of-thrones-is-most-popular-target-for-online-piracy/?mod=e2tw)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3130666/game-of-thrones-online-piracy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3130666/game-of-thrones-online-piracy/"},"headline":"Game of Thrones Takes Crown for Online Piracy","datePublished":"2014-08-17T14:09:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T09:42:35.862Z","description":"Fans illegally download Game of Thrones 300,000 times every day","url":"https://time.com/3130666/game-of-thrones-online-piracy/","keywords":["Television","game of thrones"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltec01dcf48a405c5b/69869fd5f983e773c704f41c/gameofthrones14_102-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltec01dcf48a405c5b/69869fd5f983e773c704f41c/gameofthrones14_102-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Game of Thrones","caption":"Game of Thrones","creditText":"Helen Sloan—HBO","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3130666/game-of-thrones-online-piracy/","name":"Game of Thrones Takes Crown for Online Piracy"}}]}] ```