Most pirated television shows of the week

By Eriq Gardner

We're going to begin a weekly look into the world of piracy by breaking down statistics that chart the phenomenon. This week, 20th Century Fox’s "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" captured headlines after the film was leaked and more than a million people downloaded the torrent. The FBI is reportedly investigating the source.

But for all the hullabaloo over "Wolverine," a million downloads still would not make it the most pirated entertainment property last week. For that we turn to the world of TV, where the most popular shows flood the torrent universe. Last week, according to ShowInsider, which monitors bittorrent sites around the Internet, NBC's "Heroes" was downloaded an estimated 1,760,000 times, just surpassing the total number of torrent downloads for ABC's "Lost." 

"House," "24," "The Big Bang Theory," "How I Met Your Mother," "South Park," "Family Guy," "Gossip Girl," and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" rounded out the top ten of most pirated TV shows on the Internet.

U2 band manager Paul McGuinness thinks he sees the solution to rampant piracy. In a column penned for The Guardian, McGuinness embraces recent proposals by French lawmakers to give ISPs a responsibility to monitor their networks, and kick people off of the Internet after repeat infringements. Of course, the Pirate Bay has already anticipated such a move, launching a new service called Ipredator, designed to mask IP addresses for its users. Over 100,000 people have already signed up.

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