Chicago (IL) – The Batman sequel The Dark Knight was a smash hit at the box office, with $400 million in U.S. ticket sales in its first 18 days after release and more than $1 billion in sales globally so far.  But the title achieved another significant milestone: It amassed over one million illegal downloads on BitTorrent in less than seven days.

The data, published by Torrent Freak, includes DVD rips, DVD screeners and R5 rips – and makes The Dark Knight most pirated movie of last week and the likely candidate to earn the title of the most pirated movie of the year.

The movie became hugely popular on BitTorrent when DVD rips appeared about a week ago. Another popular sharing site, The Pirate Bay, actually celebrated the arrival of the DVD version. The movie became available for download within less than 24 hours of the DVD release and attracted quite some attention.

If we look at the aggregated download numbers of early cam screeners and DVD rips that followed, The Dark Knight is on track to surpass "Transformers", "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk" to become the most pirated movie of 2008. According to TorrentFreak, the most pirated movies in the last week were The Dark Knight, Traitor, Tropic Thunder, WALL-E and Stepbrothers.

The most pirated movies of 2007 reportedly were Transformers, Knocked Up, Shooters, Pirates Of The.Caribbean At World’s End and Ratatouille.

'La Noche oscura' or 'Tyomnaya noch'?

Nov 20, 2008 00:57     

There is no the Batman sequel with 'The Dark Night' title? http://www.imdb.com/find?q=The Dark Night;s=tt;site=aka
mehtron report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +9

You mean Dark Knight ;-)...

Nov 20, 2008 01:06     

You mean Dark Knight ;-)
eyal report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

But what about sales

Nov 20, 2008 07:42     

A movie being pirated the most of any other movie this year is shocking at first glimpse, but how is the movie selling? I bet it will be #1 for the year as well. Perhaps the number of times pirated when compared to the amount of media (dvd/bluray) sales will be comparable to other movies. The Dark Knight was the most popular movie of the year and one of the most popular movies of all time (based on cash, not including inflation), of course it is going to have the most torrent downloads as well, just as it will have the most dvd/bluray sales no doubt.

pan report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +8

TG Daily Statement: The Dark Night

Nov 20, 2008 09:27     

Many of you commented on an obvious error in this article titling this movie - "The Dark Night" instead of "The Dark Knight". We have corrected this misprint and apologize for the error. -ed.
WolfgangG report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +5

P

Nov 20, 2008 12:10     

I thought the DVD came out on Dec. 9th? Is that just the U.S. release date? I guess the movie getting pirated hurts a lot less when it banks over a billion and keeps on going.
P report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Not surprised

Nov 20, 2008 23:13     

Seeing as it was the best movie of ALL time. http://www.anonweb.eu.tc
JohnWoods report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Man that was a great movie

Nov 21, 2008 01:11     

That movie was great because they developed the story line well. It was amazing... dirty videos
boobyvideo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

News?

Nov 24, 2008 11:30     

Ya really not surprising, it makes perfect sense that the extent of piracy for a movie would be directly related to its popularity.
B report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Pfft...

Mar 06, 2009 12:52     

Most downloaded? Pfft.. This movie was the worst Batman movie ever, and i hate Batman. Well, the pen thingy with the Joker was kinda neat. Glad i'm among those 1 million peers that downloaded this movie and didn't consider of buying this piece of shit to movie.
KlottrarN report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0