Even when they try to give us legal options, there are still jerks out there who would rather steal things for free. Yeah: last night’s Game of Thrones finale? Apparently it’s already breaking crazy piracy records — even with the existence of standalone streaming service, HBO Now. This is why we can’t have nice things, Internet!
According to TorrentFreak, “with 1.5 million downloads in eight hours,” Thrones‘ hold on the illegal webworld is strong and expected to grow. In fact, TorrentFreak anticipates the number of illegal downloads “will swell to over 10 million during the days to come.”
“The episode also broke the all-time record for the number of people sharing a single file at the same time,” their statistics found. And here we thought the piracy numbers connected to “Kill the Boy” were impressive: that season five episode garnered over 2.2 million downloads mere hours after it had been released onto the world.
We have to say, though, we’re a little disheartened by all of this: why can’t we all support the things we love? Listen, I know HBO isn’t cheap — and avoiding spoilers at work the day after can be an exercise in futility — but when you think about all the hundreds and thousands of people that work on this show to make it great, it feels like a super disservice to all their hard work. Besides! HBO has already stated they really don’t care about HBOGo password sharing.
What do you think about illegal downloading? Let’s discuss it in the comments.
Alicia Lutes is the Associate Editor of The Nerdist and really loves rules. Find her on Twitter @alicialutes.
