The second season of Game of Thrones is easily the most pirated television show of 2012 and HBO's own distribution schedule is a major contributing factor to all of the illegal downloads, according to TorrentFreak.
Each new episode of the popular sword-and-sorcery epic results in between 3 and 4 million downloads of unofficial copies that appear on BitTorrent, the torrent-tracking site reported Sunday.
"Statistics gathered by TorrentFreak reveal that more people are downloading the show compared to last year, when it came in as the second most downloaded TV-show of 2011. The number of weekly downloads worldwide is about equal to the estimated viewers on HBO in the U.S., but why?" the site asked.
The answer, at least in part, is that HBO airs Game of Thrones on a delayed schedule in some international markets than it does in the United States. Australia, for example, doesn't get the most recent episode for a full week after it airs in the U.S. and that has Australian GoT fans turning to BitTorrent for their Westeros fix.
HBO also keeps a tight rein on the distribution of Game of Thrones. The show is only available to HBO subscribers on cable or HBO GO and isn't distributed through a third-party like Netflix, which TorrentFreak theorized is creating more motivation for people to turn to illegal downloads of the show.
The site put the question to its readers as to why so many people are downloading pirated versions of the show. A few pointed to another possible reason—censorship. Game of Thrones, a violent and sexually graphic show, is apparently scrubbed of its racier bits in some countries where legal versions of the show are available. Viewers who want the uncut story in those markets are turning to the torrents to get it.
TorrentFreak speculated that because increased piracy is a predictable result of how HBO distributes the show, it may be that the cable network is making a business decision to "accept" some level of piracy.
"Whether this is the best decision in terms of revenue is hard to tell, but it's clear that HBO prefers more exclusiveness over less piracy. And who knows, maybe they even sell HBO subscriptions to BitTorrent downloaders in the long run," the site said.
For more from Damon, follow him on Twitter @dpoeter.
