Piracy Tracking Company Says Game of Thrones Season 7 Pirated Over a Billion Times

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monkeymagick

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TorrentFreak mentions that the seventh season of Game of Thrones was pirated over a billion times. Getting data published from piracy tracker MUSO, the report suggests that each episode of the seven episode season was pirated 140 million times. Most pirated viewers chose to stream the episodes by an overwhelming 85 percent.

The streaming data MUSO covers is sourced from SimilarWeb, which uses a sample of 200 million 'devices' to estimate website traffic. The sample data covers thousands of popular pirate sites and is extrapolated into the totals.
 
All that exposure with no extra cost to the advertising department.

I thought that was the ultimate dream. What am I missing here except a malignant tumor in my brain that would make me think this was bad?
 
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Yay for idiot news. So the same 140 million users (ish) downloaded each of the episodes of GoT and that adds up to over 1 billion. Woohoo for math!
 
ElBerryKM13 said:
And it will keep rising if these people don't offer better plans or platforms to watch their content.
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Yep I haven't seen more than a handful of GoT episodes. They come at inconvenient times on TV and I'm not bothered to start to record them. OTOH I'm not bothered to pirate them either. Not worth the risk really.
 
Too many competing streaming services. I've got loads, and I have to for all the stupid exclusives they have. I've got Netflix, Amazon Prime, iPlayer (which is free), 4OD, ITV Player, Plex (to stream my ripped dvd/blurays/homevideos/photos) Disney streaming, HD Homerun for over-the-air content, and Now TV. SO I have to have 10 different streaming clients to access everything I want. And each of them mostly has crap except for the 2-3 shows I want to actually watch, and some things I want to watch aren't available on any of them or at all. Some things are country locked too, so I either have to wait or do without. Costs me a fortune every month to be legal. It seems like every few months I have to sign up for a WHOLE NEW streaming service with a monthly fee.

I can totally see why people would pirate. Not only is it free, some stuff is available in 4K, no country locks, but it's FAR more convenient than the crap I have to deal with.

They need to get a grip and sort things out. It's a mess. We went from one content delivery system where you could usually get everything for a paid, or limited for not. Sky, Cable or Freeview, to a stupid number of services.

edit; add another one, Google Play for specific one-off content. Which is stupidly expensive. Half the price of the bluray to be only able to watch it for a limited time.
 
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A Billion viewers, just wow. I didn't realize this show was that awesome, who knew? I guess those billion people did. Now I would pay a dollar to watch the show, gosh even a dollar an episode, With each person paying a dollar that should cover the cost of the program.

I have tried the cord cutting thing and while I watch TV only once every 2 weeks my family watches it non stop and do not want to fiddle about with sorting out the streaming services etc they want easy. What is the easiest way to do this? The price of comcrap is killer but an unhappy family is far more costly.
 
I watched one episode, good advanced cosplay I guess. They had three dragons that could have flown to mean queens castle and barbecued everyone in the night. Maybe they have poor night vision? Anyway had trouble suspending disbelief.
 
gunbust3r said:
I watched one episode, good advanced cosplay I guess. They had three dragons that could have flown to mean queens castle and barbecued everyone in the night. Maybe they have poor night vision? Anyway had trouble suspending disbelief.
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LOL! I couldn't watch even one, though that goes for all shows. Prefer to watch single movies, but even these are far and few. Just not much in movie industry in general that's worth spending the time on...
 
AK0tA said:
A Billion viewers, just wow. I didn't realize this show was that awesome, who knew? I guess those billion people did. Now I would pay a dollar to watch the show, gosh even a dollar an episode, With each person paying a dollar that should cover the cost of the program.

I have tried the cord cutting thing and while I watch TV only once every 2 weeks my family watches it non stop and do not want to fiddle about with sorting out the streaming services etc they want easy. What is the easiest way to do this? The price of comcrap is killer but an unhappy family is far more costly.
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You need to take control of your family.
 
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I'm curious how many of those pirated episodes were people legally paying. I have HBO on my account, but I still pirate it. It's just easier. I know Season 7, i had one episode that was cut short on my DVR and at least one other affected by rain/weather (damn satellite).
 
guys, it says it was pirated over a billion times NOT that a billion people pirated the season. More like people watched a few episodes multiple times.
 
An insight into the math of copyright trolls.

On the other hand pirate streams are stupid. Instead of watching the official shitty stream, you switch it up for an even shittier pirate stream? Well I could never understand camrip watchers either. This is just another form of being frugal to the extreme.

But I digress, I always take these statistics with a hint of salt. But if the 85% figure is true then that paints a sad picture about the people doing the piracy.
 
ElBerryKM13 said:
And it will keep rising if these people don't offer better plans or platforms to watch their content.
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Arh HAR! Give us ye goods for the price we want, and the convenience we want or we we take everything you have! Ye have no right to do business or make money like you want, not with treasure this valuable!
 
Time2Kill said:
I'm curious how many of those pirated episodes were people legally paying. I have HBO on my account, but I still pirate it. It's just easier. I know Season 7, i had one episode that was cut short on my DVR and at least one other affected by rain/weather (damn satellite).
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I pay for hbo and download them because almost every episode on xfinity and directv streaming had 5-8 minutes missing at the ending of them.
 
They forgot to mention that is the very reason the Show is huge. The actual volume of HBO subscribers is so damn small that this show would barely be a blip on the radar. Pirates saved this show from obscurity. The new Star Trek will have the same fate. No one subscribes to cbs direct.
 
imagine that.

The pirates service is more valuable.

If only HBO could get everyone to pay at least one dollar per download.

Nah subscription model is way better lol.
 
Jesus, those damn pirates just stole $50,000,000,000 (copyright math, we'll say each view is $50, because we said so) from HBO!
 
B00nie said:
Yep I haven't seen more than a handful of GoT episodes. They come at inconvenient times on TV and I'm not bothered to start to record them. OTOH I'm not bothered to pirate them either. Not worth the risk really.
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Smart choice. Not worth the exposure to bad scripts.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Arh HAR! Give us ye goods for the price we want, and the convenience we want or we we take everything you have! Ye have no right to do business or make money like you want, not with treasure this valuable!
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Arrhh Har! We assume all our customers are pirate overlords, and want to get access only to distribute our shit illegally so we put DRM on their assess, and we don't let them watch our stuff offline! We also take a good look at where you happen to live, because if it's a continent we don't like you're fooked. Your money only buys so much then, we charge you the same, or more, but give you a castrated service with two thirds of the library off limits to you, you garbage human, who has the audacity to try and subscribe to our service from abroad! But we don't know why those nasty people still choose not to subscribe to our wonderful services, what could it be we wonder while we whine at every turn about how much we "lost" to piracy.
 
bigboymuscles678 said:
guys, it says it was pirated over a billion times NOT that a billion people pirated the season. More like people watched a few episodes multiple times.
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And yet I imagine the MPAA would happily argue that pirates have cost HBO 1 billion multiplied by whatever an HBO sub costs, plus the price of a season 7 blu ray box set per download.
 
When I first saw the title I though it read : "Privacy tracking company"

Now that would be a paradox rivalling the ones about time travel.
 
I don't believe their numbers. If piracy was this big of a problem, Stardock and GoG would have both gone out of business a long time ago.
 
bigboymuscles678 said:
guys, it says it was pirated over a billion times NOT that a billion people pirated the season. More like people watched a few episodes multiple times.
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If you want to get technical, the article title says ‘Game of Thrones Season 7 Pirated Over a Billion Times’.

The season was not pirated that much, each individual episode adds up to that number.
 
AK0tA said:
A Billion viewers, just wow. I didn't realize this show was that awesome, who knew? I guess those billion people did. Now I would pay a dollar to watch the show, gosh even a dollar an episode, With each person paying a dollar that should cover the cost of the program.

I have tried the cord cutting thing and while I watch TV only once every 2 weeks my family watches it non stop and do not want to fiddle about with sorting out the streaming services etc they want easy. What is the easiest way to do this? The price of comcrap is killer but an unhappy family is far more costly.
Click to expand...

Cancel all the cell data, Internet and cable plans other then what you yourself need and use. Give the rest of the family the monthly savings and let them figure it out subject to staying within the budget. Oh, invest in a good set of noise cancelling headphones.

As for the piracy numbers, this kinda pokes a few holes in the piracy = death of media companies arguments since HBO isn't lacking for subscribers watching GoT.
 
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Let me see...

On HBO Go, good.

Not available in my country of residence outside the US, bad.

Seems no plan to change that either, so I'll get the content one way or the other. Still buying the season box set when it hits stores anyways.
 
HBO got exactly $15 out of me for GoT this time around. 2 months of HBO now, 1st month free. Also got to watch Westworld (cool but weird) and Ballers (I like The Rock, but kinda meh).

But yeah if they would just have a $1 per episode HD streaming option, I bet a lot of people would do that rather than torrent.
 
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KarsusTG said:
I don't believe their numbers. If piracy was this big of a problem, Stardock and GoG would have both gone out of business a long time ago.
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No, piracy exists in large numbers, the problem with their math is that they claim that every download would translate into a purchase / subscription. Which is utter nonsense. First off the same people probably downloaded all the episodes, so let's at least divide the number by the number of episodes, second the majority of downloaders either don't have it avaialable in their region legally, or wouldn't subscribe even if they couldn't get it trough torrents.
Otherwise piracy also serves as free advertising for them. Although the numbers are unknown here, because none dares to find out lest they loose their talking points.
 
I suspect Game of Thrones is the most popular TV show on the planet. You just wouldn't know that by looking at legit HBO subscribers. The number of people illegally streaming and downloading it is off the charts.
 
I think it's just one guy in a basement somewhere, who watched it a billion times. And he probably works for a studio, but he's too cheap to actually buy their crappy product.
 
Dead Parrot said:
Cancel all the cell data, Internet and cable plans other then what you yourself need and use. Give the rest of the family the monthly savings and let them figure it out subject to staying within the budget. Oh, invest in a good set of noise cancelling headphones.

As for the piracy numbers, this kinda pokes a few holes in the piracy = death of media companies arguments since HBO isn't lacking for subscribers watching GoT.
Click to expand...

Also pokes holes in the pro-piracy crowd that says that they want content that's easy to access and cheap. One month of HBO now costs what 15bucks? That's too much money to legally stream ALL the seasons of the show?
 
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