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By The Numbers

Atop the Iron Throne of pirated TV

Max Bernstein Jun 27, 2014

Have you been using our handy list of places to pirate this year’s World Cup?

Not that we want to encourage you to do anything illegal, but, chances are, you’re already well on your way. During the 2010 World Cup alone, millions of people around the world streamed the games through one of 18,000 illegal broadcasts. And that was back in 2010, when Blackberry phones were still hot tech.

FIFA, the governing body behind the World Cup, took the unprecedented move this year of warning several prominent sites not to allow illegal game streams. (Copyright owners usually wait for the law to be broken before taking action.)

But, ultimately, trying to shut down online piracy might be a futile effort by copyright owners. Case in point: Millions and millions of people love to watch “Game of Thrones” — but only a share of them pay HBO for the privilege of watching one man crush another man’s head with his bare hands. And if you’re not one of the people using your ex-roommate’s girlfriend’s mom’s boss’s HBOGo account, you’re one of the millions of people straight up illegally downloading copies of the show.

“Game of Thrones” has sat atop the Iron Throne of illegally downloaded TV shows three years in a row. In fact, TorrentFreak put together this list of the most pirated shows of 2013.

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