The results are in: This is the most pirated show of 2015

We all know pirating music and shows and movies is never a good plan, and we do not at all condone this most illegal practice. Pay for your art, that’s how being a good audience member works.

That said, there is a certain honor in being the most pirated television program of the year (they really like you, TV show! I mean, they’re not willing to actually pay for you, but they really like you!).

And the most pirated show of 2015 goes to (drumroll please)… Game of Thrones!

Note: This is NOT GoT’s first time accepting this award. In fact, Game of Thrones is basically the Julia Louis-Dreyfus of pirated television — this is the fourth year in a row that GoT has sat on the Iron Throne of Illegal Downloads

As TorrentFreak reports, the Starks and Lannisters were downloaded 14.4 million times on BitTorrent, beating other illegally downloaded shows in a straight-up landslide.

A distant second place went to The Walking Dead, with 6.9 million downloads, and on the heels of that, The Big Bang Theory with 4.4 million downloads. Also in the top ten, Arrow (3.9 million), The Flash (3.6 million), Mr. Robot (3.5 million), Vikings (3.3 million), Supergirl (3 million), The Blacklist (2.9 million) and Suits (2.6 million).

In the cast of Game of Thrones, only 8 million people are watching GoT legally in the US, which means there is about a 175% jump from legal to illegal viewings. This is not the case with The Walking Dead. 15 million people watch the show legally in the states, which means the illegal downloads add up to less than half the legal audience.

And Big Bang fans by and large are on the straight and narrow — 18 million people watch legally, more than quadrupling the illegal audience. Of course, anyone with a TV has legal access to CBS, which probably explains THAT discrepancy (other CBS-pirated favorites Supergirl and The Blacklist show a similar gap between legal and illegal viewings).

Still, it’s a little surprising to see that Game of Thrones has SO many more illegal than legal viewers.

To get the info on all things pirating, head over to TorrentFreak.

(Image via Shutterstock and GIPHY)