Game of Thrones Leaked Episodes

It has been revealed that Britain leads the world in downloading illegal episodes of HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones. Just a sample of IP addresses of those who shared the leaked episodes of George RR Martin’s fantasy epic series has shown that 1 in 10 addresses are based in the UK. Since season five premiered on Sunday, not only did the first episode become the most pirated file in the world, but an unknown leak led to a further three episodes to appear online, where the episodes went on to become the most pirated files in the world, with each episode having been downloaded over a million times.

The origin of the Game of Thrones pirated episodes is still unknown, but it is thought to have been ripped from DVDs sent out to the press for reviews. Even with the figures for the heavily shared episodes, it still doesn’t take into account the number of streams the episodes received. Compared to the rest of the world, Britain led the rankings in most downloads at 9.8% of IP addresses shared, next is the US with 9.1%, India with 7.8%, Canada 5.4% and France with 4.2%.

HBO had decided to simultaneously broadcast the season 5 premiere of Game of Thrones at 9PM Eastern Time in the USA with the rest of the world, including over 170 countries. But Sky Atlantic, which holds the rights to Game of Thrones in the UK, decided not to participate in the joint broadcast and subsequently no doubt helped the huge surge of pirated episodes once the UK found out they would have to wait yet again. Sky Atlantic have confirmed that they will follow the simultaneous broadcast next week.

Game of Thrones will continue with episode two of season 5 next Sunday at 9pm Eastern Time US. But if you are in a country that isn’t going to be broadcasting at the same time and have an existing subscription to HBO, you can easily use Le VPN to switch your IP address to that of the US and watch it as if you were still there.