With 5.9 million downloads via BitTorrent, the 2013 season finale has beat the competition by a landslide.

More than half of the downloads occurred in the first week after the show aired and the total exceeds the number of traditional viewers in the US. Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead complete the top three with and estimated 4.2 and 3.6 million downloads respectively.

Game of Thrones’ win comes as no surprise since the show has broken two piracy records already this year, with over 170,000 people sharing a copy of an episode simultaneously.

There are a wide variety of reasons why people download TV-shows, but to a certain degree one could claim that HBO is to blame for the massive piracy of Game of Thrones. The network prefers to keep access to the show “exclusive” and even Netflix wasn’t able to buy the rights no matter what they offered.

Interestingly enough, we also learned this year that the huge number of unauthorized downloads don’t bother the show’s makers all that much, quite the contrary. Game of Thrones director David Petrarca previously admitted that piracy generated much-needed “cultural buzz” around his show.

Jeff Bewkes, CEO of HBO’s parent company Time Warner, went even further, stating that piracy resulted in more subscriptions for his company and that receiving the title of “most-pirated” was “better than an Emmy.”

On the other end of the spectrum we have Gale Anne Hurd, executive producer of The Walking Dead, who told Variety last week that unauthorized downloads are not necessarily the blessing others claim they are.

“There’s a mistaken belief by many of my peers that piracy is somehow good, that viewers will develop a habit to pay for it. I’m not sure they really understand other than anecdotal evidence that their ratings go up that the people who pirate are not then going to choose legal downloads or legal viewing in the future,” Hurd said.

Hurd has a point, as it’s not always that easy for existing pirates to give up their habit, not even if the legal options are widely available and free. For example, The Walking Dead premiere this year was downloaded en masse in the US, despite the fact that AMC streamed the show for free.

This debate about whether TV-show piracy is a good or bad thing will most likely continue throughout the coming year, and beyond.

Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows worldwide ( per single episode) for 2013, together with the viewer average for TV in the US. The data are estimated by TorrentFreak based on several sources, including download statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers.

It is worth nothing that online streaming and cyberlocker downloads are not included since there are no public sources to draw data from. The total piracy numbers will therefore be significantly higher.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Game of Thrones was a worldwide smash-hit, but it was the show’s effects on unauthorized downloading that provided the fuel behind many of the headlines.

The season premiere got the ball rolling on unauthorized consumption, setting a BitTorrent swarm record in April. By the time the finale aired in June, pirates were still having fun, setting a new record in the process.

While most GOT pirates could be tracked back to the United States and United Kingdom, the number three spot was taken by Australia. There are just over 22 million people Down Under so per head Aussies easily took the worldwide downloading crown. It was this ‘feat’ that yesterday prompted yet another high-ranking executive to mention the show and another smash-hit, Breaking Bad, alongside their dubious records.

Speaking at a Goldman Sachs investment conference, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said that piracy was showing no signs of letting up Down Under.

“Piracy in Australia is at an extraordinary level,” he said.

“Sixteen per cent – that’s one in six – of all illegal downloads of Breaking Bad are in Australia. There aren’t that many people in Australia,” he joked.

But again it was Game of Thrones generating the most interesting debate. News Corp owns 50% of pay television company Foxtel, the outfit with the rights to show Game of Thrones in Australia. At last count during August the company had around 2.5 million subscribers, but despite the show being legally available to them, the News Corp CEO said that 20% of Foxtel customers still chose to watch the show illegally.

“People are just in the habit of illegal downloads,” Thomson said. “Australians have very bad habits – piracy happens to be one of them.”

Of course, Thomson does have a point. Habits can be very hard things to break, especially ones that have proven so useful over the years. Australians have long complained of being treated as second class citizens when it comes to media availability, so BitTorrent networks have proven extremely popular, as borne out by prominent Aussie placings in TV show downloading charts.

Some moves have been made to get content to Australia quickly. In March, Foxtel announced that it would make available season 3 of Game of Thrones within two hours of its U.S. premiere, but by May things were going backwards again. Foxtel said it would stop offering the show quickly due to a deal it signed with HBO in the United States.

Then in July, Foxtel gave customers more reasons to pirate when it locked down its Foxtel Go “watch anywhere” service, banning users of jailbroken iPhones in addition to Android users not using “selected” Samsung devices.

During yesterday’s conference Thomson said that consumers of unauthorized TV shows should be made better aware of the “inherent value of content and obeying the law” but the fact that 20% of his customers chose to pirate something they already paid for should send a very strong message indeed. For whatever reason, free BitTorrent is better than a premium subscription service. That has to be fixed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Later this month the third season of Homeland will premiere, and this time the number of downloads may even be higher as pirates have access to the premiere four weeks in advance.

Homeland’s season premiere turned up online a few hours ago and already 100,000 people have grabbed an advance copy via one of the Internet’s many torrent sites. While other TV-shows have come out ahead of schedule in the past, the source of this Homeland leak is rather unique, as the copy is not completely finished.

The leak is a so-called workprint, an unfinished copy that lacks some final touches. In two instances some visual effects of bomb craters are still to be added and the opening credits are also missing. In addition, there’s one scene where the voice of the actor is dubbed.

Since it is a workprint, the source of the leak is likely connected to a post-production studio. Unlike promotional screeners which are sent out to the press in advance, not many people have access to unfinished production work.

Somehow a copy leaked outside official channels, which are generally well protected, and eventually made its way to the scene.

Unlike regular scene releases, however, it was shared by an unknown group called “HOMELAND,” which is unusual as scene groups often take pride in their work. Whoever leaked it didn’t live up to scene standards though as the release was quickly “NUKED” by peers on a technicality.

Showtime hasn’t officially responded to the leak thus far, but it could be that they’re not too bothered by the free publicity. In recent months several TV insiders have gone on the record stating that piracy may actually help TV-shows, because of word-of-mouth promotion it generates.

And with such a unique leak, there is bound to be plenty of attention during the days to come.

The last time a high-profile workprint leaked was in 2009 when an unfinished copy of the movie Wolverine leaked a month early. The leak made headlines all over the world and 20th Century Fox quickly involved the FBI to find the leaker.

After eight months the FBI eventually arrested New York resident Gilberto Sanchez. Although he was most likely not the original source of the leak, in 2011 the then 48-year old Sanchez pleaded guilty to uploading a copy of the movie to Megaupload. He was later sentenced to one year in jail.

Whether a 20th Century Fox-like manhunt or a more relaxed HBO attitude will be adopted should become apparent in the near future. In any case, the FBI will be watching.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

TV show downloading is a very popular pastime among file-sharers. The ability to grab almost any show from the present or even distant past and watch it at a time and place of a user’s choosing is a powerful lure.

As a result, specialist TV torrent sites such as EZTV continue to flourish, even at a time when broadcasters are starting to offer improved catchup and replay services. These products are helping to bridge the gap somewhat but are still miles away from the kind of service required to render specialist torrent sites obsolete.

One such site is TheBox.bz, a private torrent tracker specializing in UK TV show and radio content. From its roots way back in 2007 to last count in May this year, the site had amassed more than 90,000 members. That thriving community (the site also has busy forums) uploaded more than 110,000 torrents and at times the tracker coordinated more than a million peers overall.

But this coming Saturday it will all come to an end.

“Sadly, I can confirm that TheBox.bz is shutting down the site’s torrent section on September 1st,” one of the site’s operators told TorrentFreak.

“The decision to retire the site was not in response to any specific threat, but it is in reaction to the rapidly changing and increasingly hostile political climate we find ourselves in. We feel that being proactive and closing the doors is the most prudent move.”

There can be little doubt that the hostile climate referenced by TheBox can be traced back to actions being planned by City of London Police, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, the UK Premier League, plus other local groups such as Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Television. Right now a dark cloud is hanging over many sites and nobody has much of any idea what will happen next.

There is already talk of a new site in place to take over from TheBox but nothing has been confirmed by official sources. In the meantime though, TheBox will stay open for just a little while longer.

“As TheBox has always been as much about community as about sharing, forums and private messages will remain functional for a while longer. Afterward, we will securely wipe all account details before retiring the server for good,” the site’s operators conclude.

So another site bites the dust but there’s still no authorized service to bridge the gap. Perhaps there should be a future rule of thumb for rights holders, one that might actually motivate them to do better and please their customers more? A suggestion might be:

Don’t pressure sites to shut down until you are offering a better service than they do

When people can walk directly into a better service when a ‘pirate’ service shuts down, why would they have any motivation to seek out another? Now that’s a sustainable anti-piracy tactic right there.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

If fans can’t get a show through legal channels they often turn to pirated alternatives.

So when Time Warner Cable dropped CBS last Friday after the companies failed to reach a broadcasting agreement, there was a good chance that many of the blacked-out subscribers would turn to file-sharing networks to get their fix.

Data gathered by TorrentFreak shows that this is indeed the case for the popular show “Under The Dome.”

To find out whether download rates in the affected markets increased, we monitored U.S. BitTorrent downloads of last week’s episode as well as the one that aired this Monday following the blackout.

The data from these two samples show that in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit and Pittsburgh, relatively more people downloaded the latest episode, an indication that customers are turning to unauthorized channels to get the show.

With hundreds of thousands of downloads Under The Dome is one of the most pirated TV-shows at the moment. Of all sampled downloaders in the U.S. 10.9% came from the blackout regions for last week’s episode, and this increased to 14.6% for Monday’s episode, a 34% increase.

In New York City, one of the largest affected markets, the relative piracy rate more than doubled from 1.3% of all U.S. downloads last week to 3% for the episode that aired after the blackout.

Worldwide, the latest Under The Dome episode was downloaded slightly more than previous episodes. This means that the relative increase in piracy rates also resulted in more downloads. More tracking is required to show a long-term effect, and whether the results are the same for other CBS shows.

While one should always be careful of drawing strong conclusions from city-based data, especially when we don’t know how many downloaders are Time Warner Cable subscribers, these initial results do suggest that the blackout resulted in a local piracy surge.

At the same time that piracy spiked, the official ratings took a large hit. On Monday, Under The Dome reached its season low ranking with only 10.49 million viewers compared to 11.41 million the week before.

Meanwhile, Time Warner and CBS are still unable to reach an agreement. Yesterday Time Warner’s Chief Executive Glenn Britt offered to include CBS as an “a la carte” option for its subscribers but CBS dismissed the proposal as “a sham.”

As long as this standoff continues it’s expected that more and more TV fans will turn to unauthorized channels to watch their favorite shows, with the risk that some may never come back.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

On Sunday and just before the premiere of the new season, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo went further than almost anyone expected by admitting that piracy does have an upside.

He described massive downloading of the show as “a compliment” and added that it does nothing to damage DVD revenues. A good thing, considering what followed next.

In their own inimitable way, on Monday at least a million file-sharers paid even more compliments to the show by setting a new BitTorrent swarm record.

But just when you thought Game of Thrones news and controversy was coming to an end, another influential industry player has thrown his hat into the ring.

Timo Vuorensola is a Finnish director and actor who recently directed the 2012 Disney movie Iron Sky. Like millions of others, Vuorensola is also a Game of Thrones fan but he’s hugely disappointed with the service being offered by the local arm of HBO.

“Your service sucks. I bought it because I wanted to be able to pay and watch legally some of my favorite TV-series, namely Game of Thrones,” he told the cable and satellite network in an open complaint.

“First, the quality you are claiming to be HD is far from HD; yes, resolution matches, but the picture looks rotten and crappy thanks to bad compression rates. The image snaps off and the buffering sucks on HD so badly that it renders the service practically unusable,” he continues.

HBO have been accused before of promoting piracy by failing to offer their product in a timely fashion in various countries around the world, but Vuorensola is unhappy with everything – timing, quality and price – all of which are driving people to torrents.

“In Finland we have a saying: ‘Pitäkää tunkkinne’. It means: I fucking tried to pay for this, but your service only promotes piracy through rather expensive pricing, shitty image quality — and, well, unfortunately also your programs are unnecessarily late,” he complains.

“[The] latest episode of GOT was already *everywhere* but on HBO Nordic, and I can’t see *any* reason you are putting a one-to-two day window to releasing stuff that’s going to explode on the Internet the moment it’s released,” he accurately adds.

And Vuorensola knows his stuff when it comes to the world of files and sharing. In addition to Iron Sky he’s also the director of two of the Star Wreck movies, a series of eight films available for free download under a Creative Commons license.

“You think fans are going to sit on their asses and wait obediently for when you finally grant your grace and decide to let the stuff float to the backwater countries like Finland and whatnot. I mean we live in 2013, not in 1993, there’s absolutely no motivation for such behavior,” he notes.

In what must be the final insult, Vuorensola tells HBO that while he will continue to grace the company with his money, he will shun their delivery service and begin obtaining Game of Thrones from the most notorious file-sharing site of all.

“So, here’s what I’m going to do: I will continue paying your monthly fee for the service because I support your taste in content, but the actual content I’m unfortunately forced to grab from Pirate Bay, because your service is atrocious,” he concludes.

That’s gotta hurt.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In common with many Internet-based media consumption mechanisms, accessing of TV shows online was pioneered and developed by pirates, who in turn were driven by studios’ apparent inability to predict and then adapt to their customers’ evolving needs.

Today, the vast majority of Internet TV show downloaders simply fire up a general site such as The Pirate Bay or specialist outlets such as EZTV, hunt down a torrent, and then count down the minutes until it’s ready to watch. But how did that torrent begin its life and who put it there?

To find out, TorrentFreak has been speaking with UNKN, the founder of a TV show release group responsible for putting hundreds of episodes online. The group are passionate about what they do and they’re passionate about BitTorrent, its technology, and the communities they serve.

Upon chatting with UNKN it’s immediately apparent that he’s not only polite but modest too, and admits that his route to ‘The Scene’ was borne from a random email.

The beginning and entering The Scene

“It all started a few years ago when I began uploading some Spanish TV rips on public torrent sites, just for people and for fun. I tried to keep the best quality possible so I decided to use the x264 Scene ruleset for the encoding process,” he explains.

As reported here on TorrentFreak at the time, the Scene had just ordered all releasers to ditch the old XviD format and begin uploading in x264. That UNKN chose to follow suit for his P2P uploads caught the eye of a pirate higher up the food chain.

“Someone from the Scene saw some of my rips and they contacted me with an offer to join a Scene group, the name of which i’ll have to keep a secret. I instantly said ‘yes’.”

Things didn’t go to plan. Although he appreciated the effort that goes into Scene organization, UNKN came to feel too restricted by their strict rules and regulations. He missed the freedoms offered by the P2P world.

Back to BitTorrent

“This may sound weird but to me P2P is better than the Scene. The Scene is like an ordered library where there is only one copy of a book. P2P allows you freedoms that the Scene does not,” he explains.

As UNKN explained his recent history it became apparent that he really missed the variety of the P2P world, where anyone can contribute and add to the material already being produced by the Scene, rather than be restricted by it. It was time to move on.

“An Internet friend suggested that I found a P2P TV release group. At the beginning I thought it was a bad idea, since Spanish TV content is not downloaded as much as English TV content, but we decided to start anyway.”

Shortly after PERCEPTiON was born, free to do whatever they wanted on the most open file-sharing networks in the world. The Scene’s aim is to keep TV shows to themselves, but UNKN and friends have a different idea of how things should be done.

“To me the best part of BitTorrent networks is sharing. On P2P everyone shares, even if only downloading. It’s public to everyone and everyone is welcome to download and share without the knowledge that’s required to have access to the Scene. The main thing is that P2P provides us with a way to share quality TV releases with people around the world.”

Security

Of course each system has its drawbacks and BitTorrent is no different. UNKN misses some of the speeds available in the Scene and seems to miss some of its automated organizational aspects too. He’s also mindful that the level of security available in the Scene is a luxury that many casual BitTorrent users don’t enjoy.

“The Scene is much safer than P2P. The Scene is a perfect system that has programming and bots behind it. P2P is much more simple than that and is public so everyone may be tracked and therefore it’s more insecure,” he notes.

UNKN and his fellow members say they take precautions to reduce some of the extra risks of releasing via BitTorrent, but perhaps understandably don’t want to be drawn on too many of the details.

“To do our best with security we have some protocols. I can’t explain all of them but as an example we never seed from our personal computers. To any uploader in a similar position (I’m talking about TV releases only) we suggest to never try to make money releasing, that’s illegal. The spirit is sharing, not earning.”

The day to day – capping, encoding and releasing

Currently PERCEPTiON have 41 pages of TV show releases on ThePirateBay alone which indicates they’ve been pretty busy. So how do they operate on a day to day basis?

“A typical day in our lives is centered around chatting about what is being aired tonight and who should record it. I personally prefer to start recording ten minutes before a show is announced. This recording is done with a HDTV tuner/recorder from a terrestrial broadcast,” UNKN explains.

“After recording it’s time to remove commercials. Using some software we remove the commercials from the recording so we have a clean episode/show. This one is called ‘original’ or ‘master’ and if it’s bugged (drops or any fail) any rip from this original will be flawed too.

“After checking comes the compression. We are a P2P group but we keep x264 Scene rules for encoding (PDTV, HDTV and 720p HDTV). Compressing on x264 takes a long time even if it’s done on a good workstation. Speed to releasing is not our priority though, quality comes first.

“After compressing it’s time to create the directory for the release, name it, and add an .nfo file with information about the release. A lot of groups use automated scripts to do this packing process, we prefer to do it manually to avoid any fail. At this point the next thing is to move the release to a secure location from where to seed it. After all this we upload the torrent on various public torrent sites.”

Public torrents and the spirit of sharing

Perhaps unsurprisingly the sites favored by UNKN are TPB and KAT.

“The Pirate Bay is like the mom of torrenting, it’s the biggest free P2P site and it represents a movement for defense of the Internet. KAT is my second favorite site. In my opinion it’s very well done site, with categories for every show/movie and the different qualities of rips for that show/movie. It’s very easy to use and I especially like how KAT users are commenting and rating, which is nice for the uploader.”

Although PERCEPTiON releases turn up on some private trackers and file-hosting sites, the group’s preference is to keep things widely available and at zero cost.

“Some private trackers try to get an advantage and earn money from something that should be public and free, and I think that isn’t good. Everyone deserves to get the best quality possible, not only the invited ones, especially when sites only offer invites in exchange for money. That’s disappointing.”

Since they are located in Spain, UNKN and his friends have enjoyed the country’s historic approach to file-sharing, but of course with the new legislation being touted at the moment that could be all set to change. How do they feel about that?

“Users are always downloading and no one can stop it. This is how the Internet works. So one way or another every time that anything related with downloading on Internet is shut down the effect is that there will be another five different systems to download. People will not stop downloading and making it forbidden is not the way.”

The last word from UNKN

“If you have arrived here at the end of this interview I want to tell you thanks personally, thanks for reading. Keep downloading, don’t ever forget to share, but remember that there is a lot of work carried out by people involved in the production/distribution of TV-shows. Please support companies if you appreciate their product.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The vast majority of these BitTorrent users download video files, but despite these staggering statistics it can still be quite cumbersome to play downloaded files on the old-fashioned TV.

The first ever certified Android-powered BitTorrent box aims to change this. After the initial December launch was delayed, the BBK BitTorrent box officially goes up for sale today.

While we have seen devices that support BitTorrent downloads before, this is the first one that can can also stream content downloaded through uTorrent and BitTorrent clients on the local network.

This means that users can play content downloaded by uTorrent and BitTorrent directly on their TV. Below is a screenshot of the user interface, displaying the various BitTorrent clients the device can connect to wirelessly.

Since the device supports DLNA, users can also access other media libraries including the one from rival BitTorrent client Vuze and Apple’s iTunes.

In addition to playing content downloaded by other clients, the BitTorrent box itself also comes with BitTorrent support. Users are able to add torrent files through the built-in web browser or load torrent files from a USB drive.

The BitTorrent box then takes care of the downloading and the file can be played instantly when the download is finished.

Another upside of the BitTorrent box is that it’s running on Android, giving users access to thousands of applications in the Android market. This includes various VPN applications for those who value their privacy.

The BBK BitTorrent box is up for sale now at just under 90 euros and ships to European countries only.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Over the years the number of TV-show downloads on BitTorrent has leveled off a bit, but this year we saw a small increase again.

The majority of TV-show piracy, more than 80 percent, occurs outside the US and lacking availability is the top reason why people turn to BitTorrent.

For chart leader Game of Thrones this is no different. Airing delays and HBO’s choice not to make it widely available online are two of the top reasons why so many people pirated the show.

Game of Thrones is particularly popular in Australia, where people have to wait a week longer than fans in the U.S. to view the show. Nevertheless, even in the U.S. hundreds and thousands are downloading the show for free, although many would love to pay for it if HBO offered a standalone HBO GO subscription.

In common with many branches of the entertainment industry, the challenge for TV companies such as HBO is to come up with a business model that allows users to consume what they want at any given time, without losing existing revenue in the process.

When that puzzle is solved worldwide the number of unauthorized downloads will be pretty much insignificant.

Below we have compiled a list of the most-downloaded TV-shows (single episode) in 2012, together with the TV audience in the U.S. The data for the top 10 is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

But thanks to Twitter and Facebook, as well as the more old-fashioned forums and email lists, a storyline can be ruined by ‘spoilers’ emanating from those in regions who gain access to the show first – a recurring theme of the BBC show over the last years.

It’s about time someone started paying attention to the concerns of fans – something we pointed out back in 2008 – so ABC’s decision to place the show on its iview service is strongly welcomed.

“Piracy is wrong, as you are denying someone their rights and income for their intellectual property,” said ABC1 controller Brendan Dahill.

“The fact that it is happening is indicative that as broadcasters we are not meeting demand for a segment of the population. So as broadcasters we need to find convenient ways of making programs available via legal means to discourage the need for piracy,” he added.

The Dr Who show will be available on the iview ‘catch up’ service moments after the episode finishes airing in the UK, although those who prefer to watch on their TV will still have to wait until September 8th. While fans would prefer it aired sometime on the Sunday, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

This is not the first time a sonic screwdriver has been pointed at a broadcast schedule. Transatlantic Whovians got a taste of same-day showings last spring, and will do so again this year. For others however, FACT’s actions against the expat-focused site UKNova over the weekend could not have come at a worse time.

Will ABC’s actions pay off? We will wait and see.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.