THE WALKING DEAD Season 4 Premiere Pirated 500,000 Times!

Forgot the Zombies, AMC's hit THE WALKING DEAD is also battling hundreds of thousands of pirates! According to TorrentFreak.com which tracks illegal and legal downloads via Torrent, the premiere episode was downloaded more than half a million times in the first few hours after it's Sunday night premiere on AMC in the United States.

They report that "Data gathered by TorrentFreak shows that 16 hours after the first episode appeared online more than half a million people had grabbed a copy through one of many torrent sites. This is more than last year's season premiere, despite the legal viewing options."

In the past, people were quick to point out that piracy seemed International in nature, but Fox has moved up its roll-outs for TV shows like THE WALKING DEAD to make it available in 125 countries within 24 hours.

Oddly (or not so oddly), the #1 country on the list of the tracked downloads were from the United States. Does this mean the tracking was flawed or that US watchers who have cut the cord on cable, have instead turned to illegal downloads?

Even more odd, AMC had made the show available for free streaming on its web site, so there was no reason (in the US) to turn to torrents.

Hmmn.