Game Of Thrones tops the list of most pirated TV shows in 2015

Game Of Thrones — the popular American television series that completed airing its fifth season in June — is the most pirated show of 2015 for the fourth consecutive year running. The season 5 finale was illegally downloaded 14.4 million times via BitTorrent, beating all the other shows in the list.

The majority of downloads happened in the first week of the episode being aired. However, the figures should not come as much of a surprise for the fans of the show. Earlier in the year, the season 5 finale set a new record for being viewed the most through piracy windows. It reached 1.5 million downloads during the first eight hours.

According to the list of most illegally downloaded TV shows worldwide shared by Torrent Freak, the download numbers are based on several sources, including BitTorrent trackers. Note that the downloads do not include online streaming and downloads for file-hosting services.

The Walking Dead and The Big Bang Theory rounded up the top three with 6.9 million and 4.4 million downloads respectively. The other most downloaded shows in the list are Arrow, The Flash, Mr. Robot, Viking, Supergirl, The Blacklist and Suits.

The downloads also suggest that pirates are showing an increased interest for high quality copies. However, lower quality copies of 480p resolution still remain popular, followed by 720p and 1080p ones.