The downloading doesn’t stop when the 12-hour window closes, though. This was made possible by quick uploads to destination piracy sites, where files were available within minutes of the show’s ending on legitimate outlets like HBO and HBO Go. But the 2.2 million in 12 hours figure is still enough to beat the previous record of 1.86 million downloads in 24 hours. The number doesn’t include downloads from invitation-only piracy sites or storage lockers like Usenet, where piracy once flourished. The figure is a new high for “Game of Thrones” piracy, which continues to set records thanks to massive illicit sites like Kickass Torrents and offshoots of the Pirate Bay.
The fifth episode of Season 5 of “Game of Thrones” was illegally downloaded more than 2.2 million times in the 12 hours after it aired on HBO Sunday night, the piracy tracking firm Excipio revealed to the news site Circa.
