Game of Thrones is no stranger to illegal viewings of episodes through security breaches and leaked episodes. Now, Variety reports that season seven of the hit HBO show was illegally downloaded or streamed more than one billion times.
MUSO, an anti-piracy firm, put together a report that showed each episode of the seven episode season averaged 14.7 billion illegal views through Sept. 3, reports Variety. The season premiere alone was illegally downloaded or streamed more than 90 million times within the first 72 hours, while the finale was illegally downloaded or streamed more than 120 million times within three days.
There were a total of 1.03 billion piracy instances, reports Variety. Of those, about 85 percent were streams, about nine percent were torrents, and about six percent were downloads.
Andy Chatterley, co-founder and CEO of MUSO, told Variety that these numbers “demonstrate that unlicensed streaming can be a far more significant type of piracy than torrent downloads.”
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