'Games Of Thrones' Season 4 Episode 2 Breaks Torrent Records. Big Time.
Games of Thrones season 4 episode 2 - The Lion and the Rose - broke torrent records for most people simultaneously sharing a file through BitTorrent, attracting more than 193,000 downloads on the evening that it went out. By the end of the first day after its initial broadcast, roughly 1.5 million people had downloaded the episode.
"A few hours after the second episode came online the Demonii tracker reported that 193,418 people where sharing one single torrent," TorrentFreak reports. "145,594 had a complete copy of the episode and continued to upload, while 47,824 were still downloading the file.
"These are unprecedented numbers - never before have 193,418 people shared a single file simultaneously. The previous record was set last year, when the season finale of Game Of Thrones had 171,572 people sharing on a single tracker."
The stats reflect the ever-growing trend of illegally downloading TV shows online for free, with Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Girls all popular shows to be heavily pirated in recent years. Game of Thrones is available via subscription services HBO and Sky Atlantic.
Australia was home to the most Game Of Thrones pirates, with 11.6 per cent of torrents coming from down under. Next up was 9.3 per cent from the USA, and 5.8 per cent from the UK. The top downloading cities were Melbourne, Athens, Sydney, London and Stockholm.
In more general terms, Game of Thrones was the most pirated television show in 2013 and is top in 2014, with 1,470,046 international downloads between January and February. The Walking Dead is second with 915,162 downloads and Homeland comes in third place with 924,351.
Game of Thrones season 4 episode 2 turned the show into a murder mystery of sorts, following the vicious slaying of child king Joffrey.
More: Game of Thrones is both a ratings winner and pirate's favorite