Game of Thrones gets pirated almost 80% more than any other show

It’s a pretty good bet that HBO could expand its paying audience for Game of Thrones if it gave viewers the option to buy season passes on iTunes or Amazon like other shows do. TorrentFreak has published some pretty astonishing numbers showing that Game of Thrones’ third season premiere was downloaded illegally by roughly 5.2 million people, which is just 1.5 million fewer than the 6.7 million viewers who watched the episode the first night that it aired on HBO. What’s more, the show’s 5.2 million illegal downloads are 79% greater than The Big Bang Theory, which TorrentFreak says was the second-most pirated show in the world this past spring with 2.9 million illegal downloads.

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This article was originally published on BGR.com