Nope. Sorry, Walt
Making a list of the most pirated shows is always a bit of a dicey proposition, because it’s hard to account for all forms of piracy. There’s torrenting, and streaming, and downloading from cyberlocker storage sites, and sharing Netflix and HBO Go passwords with your family and friends, and so on and so forth. The best you can hope for, from an accuracy perspective, is either a ballpark figure of the sum total or a precise figure from one small slice of piracy that you can then extrapolate out and apply to the whole pie. The figures we’re about to discuss, TorrentFreak’s list of the top 10 most pirated shows of 2013, fall into the latter category, as they take into account only files downloaded from BitTorrent. So there’s that.
But anyway, the list: As you probably guessed, thanks in no small part to its rabid online following, Game of Thrones successfully defended its title, as it was downloaded 5.9 million times during the year. (Note to Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes: CONGRATULATIONS!) And the rest of the top five played out pretty much as you’d expect, too: Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, ratings powerhouse The Big Bang Theory, and the final season of Dexter. Cool. Great. But it’s the second half of the list where things get weird.
6) How I Met Your Mother
7) Suits
8) Homeland
9) Vikings
10) Arrow
I suppose I’ll give you Homeland and Arrow due to their past critical acclaim and devoted geek following, respectively, but … Suits? Above highly-rated shows like Scandal and Sons of Anarchy? Really? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Suits very much, and will go down swinging trying to convince people that it’s leaps and bounds better than most of the other USA dramas, but … the seventh most torrented show in the world? This doesn’t compute. I’m just going to assume it’s people downloading the show to make GIFs of Meghan Markle. Only possible explanation.
