There are plenty of awards and ratings records that shows strive to win throughout the year, but the one that Game of Thrones was recently awarded isn’t such a big honor. The HBO series, based on George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire books, has been named as the most illegally downloaded show in 2013.

George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones Cast
It's not exactly the most coveted title, but they won.

In total, episodes of Game of Thrones have scored 5.9 million BitTorrent downloads in 2013, according to piracy site TorrentFreak. This means that more people in the US downloaded the show illegally, than sat down to watch the finale on HBO – the last episode of Season 3 scored only 5.5 million viewers, which is still an impressive rating, but nowhere near comparable to the rates of illegal downloading. More than half of those 5.9 million downloaded Game of Thrones after the series finale, according to the New York Post.

The second and third most downloaded shows also shouldn’t come as any surprise. They both went to AMC for Breaking Bad with 4.2 million downloads and The Walking Dead with 3.6 million. It’s a testament to the network’s expertise in creating highly watchable shows, but we doubt network execs would be too pleased with this particular title.

Aaron Paul, Brian Cranston, Breaking Bad
Unsurprisingly, Breaking Bad came in second.

Rounding out BitTorrent’s top 10 list for 2013 were CBS’ The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, Showtime’s Dexter and Homeland, History’s Vikings, USA’s Suits, NBCs Hannibal and The CW’s Arrow.