Over the holidays, Torrentfreak released their yearly list of the most pirated movies and TV-shows of 2012. There are some surprises and also some notable films and television shows missing from their top 10 list. 

With over 4,280,000 downloads for a single episode, Game of Thrones was the most pirated movie of 2012. Dexter, last years most pirated TV-show, came in second with 3,850,000 downloads. Research by Torrentfreak highlighted the two biggest reasons why Game of Thrones captured the number one spot. With limited access to content (unavailable on Hulu or Netflix) and long delays for new episodes outside of the US (one week delay for Australian viewers), users quickly propelled the show to the top of the downloads chart. 

Project X was surprisingly the most pirated movie as there were some other big hits that came out in 2012 including, The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers. Another surprise was the fact that of the top 10 films pirated, it was the lowest grossing with $100,931,865. Earlier in the year, researchers at the University of Minnesota and Wellesley College determined that there was no link between BitTorrent pirating and US box office revenue. In fact, Hollywood set a record breaking year with over $10B+ in ticket sales, the most ever in history. So what TV-show and movie will take the crown of most downloads in 2013? We’ll have to watch and see.