Matrix Posted August 6, 2019 Share Posted August 6, 2019 Game of Thrones came to an end in 2019. The popular HBO TV series has made thousands of headlines over the years, not least because it was massively popular among pirates. New data now reveals that the final season actually triggered a visible uptick in global piracy traffic. Since the release of the first episode back in 2011, Game of Thrones has conquered the hearts of many people. Unfortunately for HBO, not all of these fans have enjoyed the series through legal channels. For several years in a row, Game of Thrones has been the most pirated TV-show. This year, when the final season aired, the interest was once again overwhelming. While there have already been some numbers floating around, revealing that millions of people turned to pirate sites to watch the show, it wasn’t really clear what the broader impact was on the total piracy ecosystem. There was some anecdotal evidence, with torrent site operators reporting massive boosts in traffic, but new data from MUSO now places the Game of Thrones numbers in a broader context. When we reviewed global pirate site traffic data provided by MUSO this week, we noticed what at first appeared to be an unusual uptick. After more than a year of slowly declining visitor numbers, there was a sudden increase in April 2019, as can be seen below. 2019 global piracy web traffic, all categories (credit: MUSO) Looking more closely, it turned out that this uptick was mostly related to video content. Other categories, including music piracy, were actually going down. While this seemed odd, the date of the sudden April spike provided a very likely explanation. On April 14, the day of the Game of Thrones season premiere, the number of pirate site visits jumped drastically, up by roughly 45 million compared to a week earlier. This pattern returned with each subsequent episode, with the record being set after the third episode. Overall, Game of Thrones appears to account for an initial uptick of roughly 8% in global traffic to pirate sites. That’s immense, to say the least. As mentioned before, this traffic boost wasn’t visible on other sites, such as stream-rippers, which are related to music piracy. 2019 global piracy web traffic to Stream-Rippers only (credit: MUSO) Sites such as The Pirate Bay did notice a sharp increase in traffic though, as the graph below shows. TPB traffic (credit: MUSO) TorrentFreak spoke to Phil Taylor, an analyst at MUSO, who supports our findings and observed the Game of Thrones boost as well. “The demand for piracy of Game of Thrones is unprecedented. The demand for GOT was so high that it visibly increased traffic for domains such as thepiratebay.org,” Taylor tells us. “We will get a better view of overall traffic and trends for 2019 as the year progresses, however, the impact of Game of Thrones on overall traffic in April and May of 2019 is clear,” he adds. Seeing the visible impact of a single title on overall yearly piracy data is rather unique. At TorrentFreak, we certainly haven’t seen it before. And now that Game of Thrones has come to an end, it’s doubtful we will again. VIEW: Original Article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game of Thrones came to an end in 2019. The popular HBO TV series has made thousands of headlines over the years, not least because it was massively popular among pirates. New data now reveals that the final season actually triggered a visible uptick in global piracy traffic. Since the release of the first episode back in 2011, Game of Thrones has conquered the hearts of many people. Unfortunately for HBO, not all of these fans have enjoyed the series through legal channels. For several years in a row, Game of Thrones has been the most pirated TV-show. This year, when the final season aired, the interest was once again overwhelming. While there have already been some numbers floating around, revealing that millions of people turned to pirate sites to watch the show, it wasn’t really clear what the broader impact was on the total piracy ecosystem. There was some anecdotal evidence, with torrent site operators reporting massive boosts in traffic, but new data from MUSO now places the Game of Thrones numbers in a broader context. When we reviewed global pirate site traffic data provided by MUSO this week, we noticed what at first appeared to be an unusual uptick. After more than a year of slowly declining visitor numbers, there was a sudden increase in April 2019, as can be seen below. 2019 global piracy web traffic, all categories (credit: MUSO) Looking more closely, it turned out that this uptick was mostly related to video content. Other categories, including music piracy, were actually going down. While this seemed odd, the date of the sudden April spike provided a very likely explanation. On April 14, the day of the Game of Thrones season premiere, the number of pirate site visits jumped drastically, up by roughly 45 million compared to a week earlier. This pattern returned with each subsequent episode, with the record being set after the third episode. Overall, Game of Thrones appears to account for an initial uptick of roughly 8% in global traffic to pirate sites. That’s immense, to say the least. As mentioned before, this traffic boost wasn’t visible on other sites, such as stream-rippers, which are related to music piracy. 2019 global piracy web traffic to Stream-Rippers only (credit: MUSO) Sites such as The Pirate Bay did notice a sharp increase in traffic though, as the graph below shows. TPB traffic (credit: MUSO) TorrentFreak spoke to Phil Taylor, an analyst at MUSO, who supports our findings and observed the Game of Thrones boost as well. “The demand for piracy of Game of Thrones is unprecedented. The demand for GOT was so high that it visibly increased traffic for domains such as thepiratebay.org,” Taylor tells us. “We will get a better view of overall traffic and trends for 2019 as the year progresses, however, the impact of Game of Thrones on overall traffic in April and May of 2019 is clear,” he adds. Seeing the visible impact of a single title on overall yearly piracy data is rather unique. At TorrentFreak, we certainly haven’t seen it before. And now that Game of Thrones has come to an end, it’s doubtful we will again.
steven36 Posted August 6, 2019 Share Posted August 6, 2019 Yes it was so bad that some download sites was disabling there site and just putting up a page links for Game of Thrones when it aired for like 4 hours so it would not knock there websites offline it made it hard to download other stuff. I don't care nothing about the show i stop watching it 2 years before it ended and still never watched it all , I don't know what the rush was but i'm glad it's over and there are no shows on that popular anymore. 🤣 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrix Posted August 6, 2019 Author Share Posted August 6, 2019 Hard to comment on the show haven't seen a single episode from the ads it reminds me of Harry Potter 😏 I am just to old for such rubbish. No offence fans! Be different if Jason Statham,Dwayne Johnson,Vin Diesel or Sylvester Stallone was in it i may of watched it. Seriously but the popularity clearly has had an impact here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted August 6, 2019 Share Posted August 6, 2019 43 minutes ago, Mach1 said: Hard to comment on the show haven't seen a single episode from the ads it reminds me of Harry Potter 😏 I am just to old for such rubbish. No offence fans! Be different if Jason Statham,Dwayne Johnson,Vin Diesel or Sylvester Stallone was in it i may of watched it. Seriously but the popularity clearly has had an impact here. You may of thought that because they had many of the same actors because they both use UK actors and were there not that many they all be on every show and movie, , But kids should not been watching GoT to violent and had lots of nudity . the reason i stop watching it too be too much like The walking dead were they all kill each other off , so you know everyone is going to end up dead but very few. In a movie it's not so bad but but watching people that are the main stars of the show die week after week gets old. Back when Harry Potter was out i never watched it but i know it was only rated PG i think Merlin was more like it than GoT was. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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