These are the most pirated movies and TV shows of 2014

[Jos]

Game of Thrones is the 'most-pirated TV show of the year' for the third consecutive time. This according to estimates compiled by TorrentFreak, which says the HBO drama’s season finale was torrented 8.1 million times during 2014. The Walking Dead and The Big Bang Theory round out the top three with an estimated 4.8 and 3.9 million downloads respectively, followed by How I met your Mother with 3.5 million and Gotham with 3.5 million.

Note that the ranking is based on the single most downloaded episode for each show, and only takes into account BitTorrent traffic. This means not only the total number of downloads for the entire series is actually much higher, but series would likely rank different with aggregate download numbers too.

The Guardian also published a ‘most pirated' list for movies. Based on data from Excipio, DiCaprio’s The Wolf of Wall Street took the top spot with 30.04 million downloads. Disney’s animated smash hit Frozen and Gravity were just behind with 29.92 million and 29.36 million downloads, respectively.

Rounding out the top five were The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, with 27.63 million downloads, and Thor: The Dark World, with 25.75 million.

Check out the complete lists for movies and TV shows below.

TV Shows	Movies
Game of Thrones – 8.1m	The Wolf of Wall Street – 30.035m
The Walking Dead – 4.8m	Frozen – 29.92m
The Big Bang Theory – 3.9m	Gravity – 29.36m
How I Met Your Mother – 3.5m	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – 27.63m
Gotham – 3.2m	Thor: The Dark World – 25.75m
Arrow – 2.9m	Captain America: The Winter Soldier – 25.63m
Grey's Anatomy – 2.9m	The Legend of Hercules – 25.13m
Vikings – 2.7m	X-Men: Days of Future Past – 24.38m
Suits – 2.5m	12 Years a Slave – 23.65m
South Park – 2.4m	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – 23.54m

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https://www.techspot.com/news/59252-most-pirated-movies-tv-shows-2014.html

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

So MPAA and conglomerate media corporations? What do you think of this? Your greedy and unoriginal efforts aren't stopping "pirating", and never will. Now now, there is some good news though. Keep pushing to providing ALL your content online with reasonable subscriptions and one-time purchases with no advertisements and pirating will continue to slow down. Once your movies and television series are EASILY available to the masses at reasonable price things will start to turn your way. Embrace technology, embrace the freedom of the internet, and your positive efforts to please the people will provide positive returns to you.

That's my opinion anyway...

 

[tipstir]

Wow! The MPAA need to invest in high quality of movies then. All the rest not listed above are not so popular then.

 

[TomSEA]

So MPAA and conglomerate media corporations? What do you think of this? Your greedy and unoriginal efforts aren't stopping "pirating", and never will. Now now, there is some good news though. Keep pushing to providing ALL your content online with reasonable subscriptions and one-time purchases with no advertisements and pirating will continue to slow down. Once your movies and television series are EASILY available to the masses at reasonable price things will start to turn your way. Embrace technology, embrace the freedom of the internet, and your positive efforts to please the people will provide positive returns to you.

That's my opinion anyway...

The only problem is as long as there are Bit Torrent sites hosting stolen property, it doesn't matter if the "conglomerate media corporations" offers the media for a NICKLE. There's a large segment of the online population who will still steal it.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

So MPAA and conglomerate media corporations? What do you think of this? Your greedy and unoriginal efforts aren't stopping "pirating", and never will. Now now, there is some good news though. Keep pushing to providing ALL your content online with reasonable subscriptions and one-time purchases with no advertisements and pirating will continue to slow down. Once your movies and television series are EASILY available to the masses at reasonable price things will start to turn your way. Embrace technology, embrace the freedom of the internet, and your positive efforts to please the people will provide positive returns to you.

That's my opinion anyway...

If only they had asked you before making major business decisions, right?

They know all of this. Have you heard that HBO is cancelling the next season of Game of Thrones? No... because they're not, because they're making a pile of money charging people for subscriptions to HBO. They want to keep their shows exclusive. It helps bring in subs and it keeps the value of their brand high.

Netflix is already paying AMC (I think) for walking dead, and Big Bang Theory is paid for as soon as it's on by the commercials, so I doubt they care all that much.

Pirating is a cost of doing business, just like Walmart deals with employees dropping a palette of glasses every now and then. It goes on the accounting sheet as 'breakage'. They're not going to make changes to their business model just to avoid downloads that may or may not actually turn into paying customers.

 

[Camikazi]

So MPAA and conglomerate media corporations? What do you think of this? Your greedy and unoriginal efforts aren't stopping "pirating", and never will. Now now, there is some good news though. Keep pushing to providing ALL your content online with reasonable subscriptions and one-time purchases with no advertisements and pirating will continue to slow down. Once your movies and television series are EASILY available to the masses at reasonable price things will start to turn your way. Embrace technology, embrace the freedom of the internet, and your positive efforts to please the people will provide positive returns to you.

That's my opinion anyway...

The only problem is as long as there are Bit Torrent sites hosting stolen property, it doesn't matter if the "conglomerate media corporations" offers the media for a NICKLE. There's a large segment of the online population who will still steal it.

Hasn't it already been shown (with Steam, GMG and the rest) that people ARE willing to pay if the prices are not crazy? Yes, there will always be those who will always pirate but many of them would be willing to pay if the price was reasonable and they didn't have to jump through hoops just to watch, Netflix and Hulu are proof of that. Also I don't believe the segment who will always pirate is as large as you think, it may seem large when you throw around a number like 25 million but how many people actually paid to watch it or bought it on DVD or Blu-Ray? Also, it's copying not stealing since the original product is still there, small difference but it is a difference.

 

[yRaz]

There will always be those that pirate but I think there is a lot companies can do to reduce piracy.

1)make content easily accessible.

I'd gladly pay for GoT, but I am not paying for Cable just so I can buy HBO to watch one show. The very idea is ludicrous. From what I read that might be changing, which is a good thing. I'd gladly pay $15 to own a GoT season a week after the season is finished, I like to marathon shows over a day or two.

2)STOP MAKING SHITTY PRODUCTS.

A lack of quality in the industry has reduced consumer confidence in the products they are paying for. I've seen some terrible TV shows and movies that got great reviews(from major review sites) that I've stopped watching after 30-40 minutes. There are products out there that people just aren't willing to pay for. A company grabs as much money as it can before actual reviews get on the net. If someone makes a quality product, they deserve to get paid. When someone makes a terrible products and lies about the content in it just to make money, they deserve to go out of business. Far too many producers and publishers release low quality products just to mop up cash. A major business model in the industry is basically to just take the customers money. This is causing problems for the people who actually make quality content.

3)lower your prices.

The economy for many people is still recovering. They want to buy the product but they just can't. $30-40 for new releases is just too much. $40 is breakfast lunch and dinner for some families. When a portion of the population has to decide between eating for a day or buying a 90 minute DVD they're obviously going to choose food. Why pay $40 for a DVD when you can have it for free online? Renting through redbox, netflix and hulu has made this easier for a lot of people, but it can often me months before these show up as rentals while they're widely available online for free.


Simply put, people are tired of waiting for an overpriced product that they can confident in. Again, there will always be pirates, but they can do a lot to reduce piracy through cost, quality and ease of access.

 

[TomSEA]

Also, it's copying not stealing since the original product is still there, small difference but it is a difference.

So how come you don't make copies of ten dollar bills and use that to buy your groceries? That would be "just copying."

Just one of a number of ridiculous excuses pirates use to justify their theft. "I'm not stealing, I'm copying." (rolls eyes)

 

[yRaz]

Also, it's copying not stealing since the original product is still there, small difference but it is a difference.

So how come you don't make copies of ten dollar bills and use that to buy your groceries? That would be "just copying."

Just one of a number of ridiculous excuses pirates use to justify their theft. "I'm not stealing, I'm copying." (rolls eyes)

Counterfeiting isn't stealing, though. You create an object that isn't worth anything to trick people into giving you things for something that is. There is no trade in internet piracy. No body is losing inventory over piracy.

Infact I'd saying that the publishers, with selling you a "digital" copy is closer to counterfeiting. They sell you an identical copy of something that they still own only you are paying for the right to look at it. Buying movies and music only you are only purchasing the rights to view or use something and their are terms to how you can use it. Say you pay $20 to be able to watch a movie at any point in your life or you pay $4 to have the right to view it for the new 48 hours. Each product is identical, only one of them you lose the right view.

Something that I often wonder is when I rent something I want to see online, what am I actually paying for? Where is my money going and why? One area in particular is with games. Why is a digital copy worth the same as one with a disk and book? No one has to pay to keep inventory with digital downloads. Bandwidth is almost certainly cheaper than storage space. There is no shipping fees or manufacture feels. If anything, digital copies should be MUCH cheaper hard copies but are not.

I'd say that selling the information instead of a physical copy for the same price as a physical copy is closer counterfeiting than piracy. They are "printing" their game onto our hard drive and charging us as if we had something in our hands. Digital downloads are the way of the future so I will tolerating licensing, but you would think that this cheaper method of distribution would bring prices down. Charge the same price for a digital copy is actually more expensive since you are receiving less for your money

None of that is meant to justify piracy, but we have to understand what the product is before we can say anything has been stolen.

 

[captaincranky]

I hardly recognized her with her clothes on:

 

[treetops]

I remember when people would wonder, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family? Now the debate is, is it wrong to download copies of entertainment?

Back in the vcr\cassette days people copied radio and tv broad casts all day. No one thought it was morale dilemma in the 90s. That's probably one of the reasons they switched to dvd cds for next new thing.

Long ago people sang songs and told tales for fun. My how the world has changed.

It's kind of hard to feel bad for companies that used to make cds for a nickel and sell them for 20$.

Of course there is really no excuse to steal entertainment or is there? Is it stealing if your getting back at a industry that has been giving you a raw deal for years? Or is that revenge, they didn't have to mark up their products so high. No we did not have to buy it, you wont die without entertainment.

Now the choice is ours, we can pay for a movie or we can be greedy download it for free.

My name is earl style Karma?

Monkey see monkey do?

Man can't live on bread alone

 

[Guest]

South Park, which is available for free at official website is one of the most pirated TV series? It seems that it's matter of principle for pirates.

 

[SirDigby]

Speaking from personal experience, I use torrenting as a try-before-you-buy thing. I'm not gonna buy a TV show series boxset on blu-ray if I don't like it, I have freeview in my room but it's largely inconvenient and we have the best Virgin Media package you can get downstairs but again, it's largely inconvenient. I don't consider myself a content thief for TV at least, I just prefer to watch things in my time not the TV schedule, as it happens I downloaded Season 1 & 2 of GoT in January of 2013, loved it, told all my friends about it, they now all watch it too, I got the boxset on blu-ray for Xmas for series 1-3. I've downloaded a majority of Marvel films, but for Xmas I got The Avengers, GotG, Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America 1&2, all of which I also saw in the cinema.

To be honest I'm just getting round to buying them all, but until then I want to watch them.

I don't torrent games, shown by my Steam library (335+), the only games I have torrented were games I already owned and had stopped working, had a version of already on a different console or like with South Park, I wanted the uncensored version.

 

[captaincranky]

...[ ]....Back in the vcr\cassette days people copied radio and tv broad casts all day. No one thought it was morale dilemma in the 90s. That's probably one of the reasons they switched to dvd cds for next new thing.

This is a bit under informed, but I'm assuming you may not have been around in those days. When the first monster VCRs were offered to consumers, (about 25 or 30 Lbs.& $1000.00+ in 60's money), they created a furor of copyright issues. Oddly, Sony was championing the use of VCRs by the masses for the purpose of taping their favorite shows. Sony won the court battle, but lost the format war when "Beta" tanked. Some believe it was actually better looking than VHS, but always trust the public's ability to back the wrong horse. It is pretty ironic that Sony, the champion of root kitting people's computers to avoid their CDs being copied, was the former champion of "fair use" legislation.

I still have a couple free standing DVD recorders around the house which I use from time to time. Back then, you couldn't buy ripping software, and had to buy "copy guard eliminators". These were black box affairs, that spliced in between the source and the recorder. (Very hush, hush. At one point the were only available by, "mail order", if anybody remembers what that was).

History has a habit f repeating itself however, and it's no longer legal for DVDFAb to sell its product in the US market. Not even by mail order...

Long ago people sang songs and told tales for fun. My how the world has changed.

Not true. I like to turn up my car stereo and shriek along with the high notes. Sometimes I put my hand up to my ear and pretend I'm talking on the phone. But I only do that when I'm stopped at a traffic light. One shouldn't even pretend to talk on the phone while driving.

@treetops I'd consider it a personal favor if you'd read this page from Gibson.com: http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/3-Things-That-Suck-About-Music.aspx

Part of It's about how streaming services screw the musicians mercilessly. And here everybody blamed the record labels for everything....

It's kind of hard to feel bad for companies that used to make cds for a nickel and sell them for 20$.

Yeah, even at their highest retail, DVDs were less than 1/4 the price of a step up grade of Maxell videotape. I would like to find an old receipt for DVD blanks from "CompUSA". I know those nasty old 1X or 2X store brand DVD blanks were a buck apiece though.

The people that really used to get screwed on tape prices, were the rental houses. Movies used to come to Blockbuster, (and its ilk), 3 (?) months before the tapes were offered for retail sale. I read a price list at one point, and I think they were paying about $80.00 a tape.

Of course there is really no excuse to steal entertainment or is there? Is it stealing if your getting back at a industry that has been giving you a raw deal for years? Or is that revenge, they didn't have to mark up their products so high. No we did not have to buy it, you wont die without entertainment.

What there's actually no excuse for, is all the arguing and railing that's done about pirating on the internet. (myself included). You want to steal, you want to download and not call it stealing, you don't think others should? All it usually amounts to is bragging, complaining, attempts at justification, or inflicting one's will on others. When one is silent, there is no need for self explanation or rationalization.....

 

[Alpha Gamer]

Lots of complex and over-rationalized reasons for piracy...
Is it so hard to say "I pirate because I can"?

 

[Kibaruk]

So if finally tv corps executive get to the realization that they can stream the shows people want to see, with their own commercials and whatnot, they could know exactly who watches what when and how, Marketting wise this could be extremely helpful data, show wise we wouldn't see so many great series cancelled because they are shown on awful hours and days, audience wise all the benefits of both watching the show whenever we want to watch it and most importantly we can support the producers for their hard work.

Why in heavens name are they not funding this???

 

[TehZombie]

The only problem is as long as there are Bit Torrent sites hosting stolen property, it doesn't matter if the "conglomerate media corporations" offers the media for a NICKLE. There's a large segment of the online population who will still steal it.

Or where they don't have an option to buy it..sigh.

 

[Camikazi]

Also, it's copying not stealing since the original product is still there, small difference but it is a difference.

So how come you don't make copies of ten dollar bills and use that to buy your groceries? That would be "just copying."

Just one of a number of ridiculous excuses pirates use to justify their theft. "I'm not stealing, I'm copying." (rolls eyes)

Counterfeiting isn't copying, they are two very different things done for very different purposes. I myself have downloaded pirated Game of Thrones because paying for full HBO just for that show (I don't care for the rest) is ridiculous BUT I do also buy the full DVD boxsets of the show because I think it is worth it. Not everyone downloads just because, they usually do it for a reason (price is too much, not available in their region, etc.).

 

[Guest]

Talking of old video prices, I remember in the early 80's (approx 1983) looking in a shop in ireland that offered movies for sale on vhs. They were priced at just over 100 punts which would be approx 100 euros and in todays money, with inflation that would easily be 500 euros.
I remember being shocked, partly because I knew a crew of guys on a fishing boat that used to buy these tapes for when they were out at sea and even though they were loaded with money I thought it was insane. I also remember thinking, surely there must be some way to copy them.

 

[Guest]

Looks to me like several million loser criminals need to be taken out of mom's basement and brought to jail...

 

[Guest]

"I myself have downloaded pirated Game of Thrones because paying for full HBO just for that show"

yes and I steal X3 SUVs because BMW prices them way too high...

 

[Guest]

I worked for Fox Entertainment for a number of years and allow me to "educate" all the people on how your stealing effects the industry. You are not taking a dime out of any executives pay check, not even a penny. The people you hurt are the writers, actors, and many low level employees. Any ***** who steals games, music, movies, etc., believing they are sticking it to a large multi-national corporation is delusional. It would be like protesting the high cost of federal taxes by stealing your neighbor's postal packages during Christmas. You are simply stealing because you want the goods and don't want to pay for them.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I worked for Fox Entertainment for a number of years and allow me to "educate" all the people on how your stealing effects the industry. You are not taking a dime out of any executives pay check, not even a penny.

You should do a bit more studying before making such claims. If no one pirated and could actually pay for what they viewed, the executives as you labeled them would be making more than they currently are. The ones you say are the only ones hurt are the ones that are hurt the most, but everyone losses even the executives. In a society that doesn't strive for equality, why should I care one way or the other?

 

[Guest]

You should do a bit more studying before making such claims. If no one pirated and could actually pay for what they viewed, the executives as you labeled them would be making more than they currently are. The ones you say are the only ones hurt are the ones that are hurt the most, but everyone losses even the executives. In a society that doesn't strive for equality, why should I care one way or the other?

Companies have done the studies and criminals who pirate music, games, and , movies (such as yourself) do so to steal. If store clerk prevents kids from stealing candy in his store, they same kids are not going to all the sudden start buying candy from the store and increase the store revenue.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Companies have done the studies and criminals who pirate music, games, and , movies (such as yourself) do so to steal. If store clerk prevents kids from stealing candy in his store, they same kids are not going to all the sudden start buying candy from the store and increase the store revenue.

What's your point? I didn't suggest otherwise. And besides I commented as if the kids (in your example) could afford to buy the candy. In which case, they probably would start paying. As far as the research, all I see is you saying there is research. WOW, that is a very believable opinion.

And by your own example those who pirate are those who couldn't afford to begin with. So in all honesty who is being hurt, if there would have never been a sale at all?