Kevin Spacey poses backstage with his award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series for "House of Cards" at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California Jan. 11, 2015. (Photo : REUTERS)
China made the most downloads of the third season of "House of Cards" in the first 24 hours after it hit torrent services on Friday.
U.S. piracy tracking company Excipio found that out of 681,889 unique devices that downloaded the series, China accounted for 60,538.
China was followed by the U.S. with 50,008; India with 47,106; Australia with 40,557; and Poland with 37,552.
The United Kingdom with 32,703; Canada with 27,584; France with 27,151; Greece with 20,551; and The Netherlands with 20,402 completed the list of top 10 countries.
According to research firm GlobalWebIndex, aside from illicit downloads, many also use virtual private network services to access Netflix, including 20 million people from China, which means Excipio's figures should be way higher.
Season 2 registered 320,927 downloads within 24 hours of being pirated in Feb. 2014, Excipio said.
Sohu, a major Chinese online video platform that purchased the rights to stream "House of Cards" for the life of the series on mobile devices and PCs, has contacted Netflix asking to tamp down on illegal downloads.
Sohu intends to have the series evaluated by national broadcasting authorities based on regulations requiring that all overseas-made TV dramas be reviewed before broadcast in China.
Jiang, a Sohu manager, noted that the series is popular with the well-educated, high-income group, a key demographic for advertisers.
"House of Cards" starring Kevin Spacey as U.S. politician Frank Underwood is produced by online streaming video provider Netflix.
The series helped revolutionize streaming and usher in the new era of TV viewing.
It made history by garnering 14 nominations in the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards in Sept. 2013.
