Torrent Freak’s has released its annual roundup of the most pirated television shows of the year (full list below), and while non of the titles on the list are what we’d call *black shows*, one or two of them feature black characters in significant roles.

But regardless of that, it’s still a worthwhile list to share.

A couple of things of note. Firs, for the second year in a row, Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV-show for 2013.

And second, and more interesting, is that, unlike past years, more content producers and TV executives are less concerned about their shows being illegally downloaded, and some are even embracing piracy. For example, as Torrent Freak says, Game of Thrones director David Petrarca has said that “piracy generated much-needed “cultural buzz” around his show;” and Jeff Bewkes, CEO of HBO’s parent company Time Warner, added his $.02, saying that “piracy resulted in more subscriptions for his company and that receiving the title of “most-pirated” was ‘better than an Emmy.’“

An interesting shift in sentiment as the argument over the pros and cons of piracy continue.

The challenge for TV companies continues to be coming up with a business model that allows users to consume what they want, when they want, without losing revenue and profits in the process.

Below is a list of the most downloaded TV-shows of 2013 (per episode), together with the viewer average for the TV show in the US, collected by Torrent Freak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers. It’s really fascinating when the number of illegal downloads per episode matches or surpasses the average audience size per episode, like with Game Of Thrones, which drew about 4.9 million viewers on average per episode last season.

So there are more people pirating the show weekly (5.5 million in the USA), than there are watching it legally. 

As Torrent Freak notes, airing delays and HBO’s choice not to make the hit show widely available on VOD (for purchase) immediately after, are two of the top reasons it’s the most pirated show. Netflix wanted streaming rights, but HBO wanted to keep the series exclusive to HBO.

And so the piracy continues.

Here’s the full list: