Game of Thrones Season 8 premiered over the weekend. The first episode was watched by over 17.4 million people through official channels, but another number has it dwarfed. Thanks to online pirates, the episode was downloaded through illegal means almost 55 million.
The numbers came courtesy of analytics firm MUSO, via The Verge. Of the massive number of illegal viewings, around 76.6% of them were from unofficial streams of the episode, with web downloads constituting 12.2% of the number. As for torrents, public torrents make up 10.8% of the number, while the remaining 0.5% are of private torrents.
According to MUSO’s data, most of the pirates are from India, contributing around 10 million views. This is followed by China, with roughly five million views. While these countries have difficulty getting access to the show – the latter only getting censored versions officially – the US, with the easiest access to HBO legally, is in third place, contributing almost four million illegal views to the tally.
For those who would like to catch the final season of Game of Thrones, there are ways to do so without contributing to the number of pirated views. A HBO Game of Thrones Pass is available via both Astro and NJOI, which will not only give you access to the final season, but also the earlier seven seasons as well.
(Source: The Verge)
