Figures released by torrenting tracker TorrentFreak reveal that the show, which has been the most popular pirated show for three consecutive³ years, was followed by AMC's zombie hit The Walking Dead, which saw 4.8m downloads.

 

The Wolf Of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's film about the life of stockbroker⁴ Jordan Belfort, was the most popular film among downloaders, being pirated30mtimes. It was followed closely by the Disney film Frozen and the 2014 remake of Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop, both of which were downloaded 29m times.

 

The next season of Game Of Thrones is set to air in April at the same time as HBO's new standalone streaming service, which will see the network try to offer an alternate way to stream the show after its current service, HBO Go, failed to have an impact on the popularity of illegal downloads.

 

Thom Yorke, who has been an outspoken⁵ critic of streaming sites such as Spotify, was the most popular legally downloaded musician after he released an album on BitTorrent. The Radiohead front man released Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, his second solo album after 2006's The Eraser, on the torrent² site and managed 1.1m downloads in the first week of its release.

 

In September Yorke explained his reason for using the torrenting site was to experiment with alternatives to traditional formats⁶.

 

"If it works well, it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work" he said, "enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves. Bypassing the self-elected gate-keepers. If it works, anyone can do this exactly as we have done."

 

Yorke was ahead of EDM artist Diplo and rappers Ace⁷ Hood⁸ and DeLa Soulon the list, and offered his album for $6. Other musicians who have experimented with alternative release formats this year include Aphex Twin, who released his album Syro on the dark web ahead of its official release in September, while Yorke released his new single You wouldn't like me when I'm angry on Bandcamp.

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