‘Game of Thrones’ season premiere breaks piracy records

The third season premiere of “Game of Thrones” did very well for HBO, with 6.7 million subscribers tuning into the program during the multiple airings Sunday night.

However, the program broke another kind of record this week, with people who presumably don’t subscribe to HBO. The episode, “Valar Dohaeris,” broke records for simultaneous illegal downloads through BitTorrent and other sites, according to the new site TorrentFreak.

With over a million downloads already, and a record 160,000 simultaneous users sharing the files, the “Game of Thrones” season premiere is on record for having the largest “swarm” of users ever downloading the program at once. The previous record had been held by the third season premiere of “Heroes,” with 144,663 simultaneous downloads.

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While the United States was home to the most downloaders, Australia actually held the most downloaders per capita and the UK was home to the city with the most downloaders, London.

Part of the reason for the overseas interest in downloading the series has a little to do with the delay in broadcasting the show outside the U.S.

“Game of Thrones” was the most pirated show of 2012, with 4.3 million episodes per episode during its second season.

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