Game of Downloading

HBO's epic new television series, "Game Of Thrones", is fast becoming the most illegally downloaded show in the world. Forbes magazine recently made public information that showed the medieval action-thriller on the verge of being the most pirated show on television. Forbes says it is because of the inability to podcast the show on iTunes or pay for it online, hence forcing tens of millions of people who do not subscribe to HBO to download the show illegally.

Personally, I couldn't stand to see this happen. "Game Of Thrones" is easily one of the best shows on TV at the moment alongside shows like "Supernatural" and "Entourage". The first season of Thrones averaged a little over two million viewers per episode in North America, which are good, but not as good as they could be. The second season, which hasn't finished yet, is averaging over three million per episode. If HBO wants to draw the fan base this program deserves, they will have to start opening their horizons and let the public purchase the episodes online, or else pirating will really have done some damage this time... so what does the future hold?

Downloading illegally is already known to have made music artists suffer. UK singer Lily Allen admits that one of the reasons she took a hiatus from the industry four years ago was because it was getting to the stage where album profits were starting to wear thin. It seems inevitable that television shows and other disciplines in the Art business will feel pain under the costly click of the public mouse.