The dynasty of not paying for trips to Westeros continued in 2024. After a six-year run from 2012-2017 when Game of Thrones was the most pirated show on the internet, its successor House of the Dragon took the dubious title back in 2022 and now, once again, it tops the list in 2024.
The news comes from TorrentFreak, which notes that the rankings are based on traffic from BitTorrent. It’s a solid indicator but only a small portion of the actual number of things being pirated from other sites that—obviously—don’t report viewership. Plus, this list does not include most anime shows, which likely skews the rankings somewhat. Nevertheless, here’s the list.
- House of the Dragon (HBO)
- The Boys (Prime Video)
- Shogun (Hulu)
- Arcane (Netflix)
- The Penguin (HBO)
- Fallout (Prime Video)
- Reacher (Prime Video)
- Silo (Apple TV+)
- Dune: Prophecy (HBO)
- Halo (Paramount+)
A few things here. First of all, pay for your shows. We don’t condone piracy and think if people are going to put their time and effort into making cool things for you, you should thank them by obtaining them legally. That said, we realize piracy is a fact of life these days and something many people do on a regular basis. We also find several things about this list fascinating. For example, that it’s so genre-specific not just this year, but most years. It clearly speaks to a certain kind of fan who pirates TV shows. Someone who loves sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, video games, etc.
It’s also interesting to think about where the shows come from. TorrentFreak notes that in 2023, Netflix didn’t have any shows on the list, but this year it has Arcane. Because Netflix has such a huge market share of streamers, the thought was maybe it was less susceptible to piracy, but clearly, that’s not the case. Maybe it was just that last year didn’t have a show internet pirates cared about. We’d venture to guess, with Squid Game now back, Stranger Things returning, and more, 2025 will see Netflix on there more consistently.
The list also, in a way, speaks to which services people are not paying for. Prime Video wildly leads the pack with three shows. You’d expect that to be one most people have, simply because it comes with other benefits such as the Prime shipping on Amazon. HBO has two shows and while pirates certainly don’t pay for cable, maybe they’d pay for its slightly less expensive streaming service, Max. Then, of course, there are Apple TV+ and Paramount+ which both make more sense as they are certainly on the smaller side in comparison. It’s a lot to digest.
Does anything about the list surprise you? What do you think will top it this year? Let us know below.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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