British fans are pirating Game of Thrones more than anyone else

Despite HBO’s best efforts, the first four episodes of Game of Thrones’ fifth season leaked over the past weekend. Naturally, they were promptly downloaded millions of times. We’re now getting more details on the extent of the leak.

According to The Guardian, as of this morning each of the first four episodes had been downloaded around a million times from public torrent sites alone, with the premiere episode being the most popular of the lot. Of those IP addresses that shared the content, fully 9.8% of them were based in Britain, making fans from the UK the most prolific Thrones pirates on the digital seas. Sky Atlantic, the channel that broadcasts Game of Thrones in the UK, opted not to join the over 170 other countries HBO wrangled into simulcasting the season premiere in favor of showing it on Monday at 9:00 GMT. In other words, British fans will get the first episode late, which could explain why they were so eager to go above (below?) and beyond to watch it.

Incidentally, Sky Atlantic has said that it plans to simulcast the remainder of the episodes. Good call.

Although the UK took first place in the race to tempt HBO to wrath, America was no slouch—9.1% of IP addresses used to share the episodes were based in the United States. Next came India with 7.8%, Canada with 5.4%, and France with 4.2%.

As to how the episodes got out in the first place, HBO had this to say: “Sadly, it seems the leaked four episodes of the upcoming season of Game of Thrones originated from within a group approved by HBO to receive them. We’re actively assessing how this breach occurred.” The pirated versions of the episodes have blurred versions of the digital watermarks present in the review copies HBO made available to the press, which supports this theory. Well, we didn’t do it. Why are you looking at us like that? What?

• Published on 04/13/2015 at 3:50 PM CDT
• Last updated on 04/13/2015 at 3:56 PM CDT