Game of Thrones Season 8 premiered with 54 million pirated downloads in 24 hours, ranking second in China

The premiere of Game of Thrones Season 8 set a new viewing record. The 17.4 million viewers were just the data announced by HBO (the premiere was at 9 p.m. EST on Sunday), but if pirated copies were included, the figures would be even more terrifying. According to Nielsen statistics, within 24 hours of the premiere of Season 8, pirated copies of Season 8 were downloaded more than 54 million times worldwide.

By region, India ranked first, reaching 9.5 million, and China ranked second, reaching 5.2 million. Although American users generally have a high awareness of genuine products and HBO has a complete service system, the number of local pirated downloads also entered the top three, reaching 4 million times. It seems that the "free lunch" has a natural temptation.

In terms of piracy methods, unauthorized online viewing accounted for 76.6%, web downloads accounted for 12.2%, seeds provided by The Pirate Bay and other platforms accounted for 10.8%, and private seeding and sharing accounted for only 0.5%. On April 15, more than 120,000 people shared seeds on BitTorrent.

I never expected such a huge amount of pirated viewing. If people watched it legally, the ratings for Game of Thrones Season 8 would be even higher.