Piracy is a fact of life in the entertainment industry, no matter how hard studios try to fight it, and at a time when the streaming industry feels more and more like cable television for the dayโIt will continue like this for the foreseeable future. But that doesn't mean it's not interesting to see what the audiences were. searching on the high seas...and how much of that really hasn't changed.
In Torrent Freak's annual look at piracy in 2023, the top 10 shows were once again dominated by familiar faces from the world of streaming sci-fi, fantasy and superhero material. It is a trend in force in recent years since the era of game of Thrones'climaxโthat dominated torrent sites for virtually the entirety of his career, a legacy continued now by Dragon House, which took the crown in 2022, gave way to pirated streaming content. Here is the list for 2023:
10) Ted Lasso (AppleTV)
9) Generation V (Amazon Prime Video)
8) tulsa king (Supreme+)
7) Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (AppleTV)
6) Silo (AppleTV)
5) secret invasion (Disney+)
4) Ahsoka (Disney+)
3) Loki (Disney+)
2) The Mandalorian (Disney+)
1) The last of us (HBO)
It should be noted that, like Torrent Freak, these statistics only reflect a portion of this year's pirated content. The statistics are specifically for single-episode torrents, rather than season-long packs, and even more specifically, they are based on data from the BitTorrent torrent platform. Just as television has grown and evolved through new formats in the last decade, so has piracy, and more and more people are turning to it. sites hosting streams of pirated content, rather than โtraditionallyโ pirating content through downloaded local copies. But even with that in mind, it's no surprise that for the most part the shows in highest demand are those that require premiums to access across multiple streaming platforms, including The last of us fits this as it is a hybrid show broadcast on premium cable and simulcast on (HBO) Max.
As the streaming era continues to descend into a portfolio of walled gardens, rather than its initial promise of offering access to content from a variety of studios in a singular location, it's no surprise that people see piracy as an alternative to paying from another subscription. -Service based in addition to what they already do to try out a show. And that certainly seems to be the case considering there's one major streamer notably absent from this year's list: Netflix. It's not like the streamer hasn't had any great shows this year either; Many more people are more likely to have a Netflix subscription than one. AppleTV+ either Disney+ subscription... and given the general trend on many streaming platforms this year has been increasing the priceIts on cut or stagnant contentand, well, can you blame people for not wanting to buy something in addition to what they already have?
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