The most pirated TV shows: 3 lessons

Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother, and The Big Bang Theory get illegally ripped from the internet the most often. What does that say about TV viewers?

About 4.2 million people watched the season finale of "Game of Thrones," which is only slightly more than the average number of people who illegally download each episode of the hit HBO drama
(Image credit: HBO/Paul Schiraldi)

The second season of HBO's fantasy drama Game of Thrones broke ratings records. It was also the most pirated TV show of the season. The series averaged nearly 4 million illegal downloads per episode, slaughtering the second and third ranked series How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory, which each averaged about 2.8 million illegal downloads per episode. Here, three lessons to be learned from TV fans' pirating habits:

1. It's time for HBO to cut the cord

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