"House of Cards" is becoming popular outside of the United States and it has little to do with patriotism, but rather illicit downloads of the Netflix show.
Season 3 of "House of Cards" is seeing a surge in illegal downloads, according to Variety. The most downloads are taking place in China, as reported by piracy-tracking company Excipio.
With 60,538 downloads, China ranks as the top country for season 3 piracy; followed by the United States with 50,008 downloads; India with 47,106 and Australia with 40,557.
Excipio published a list of countries where the series is doing brisk business. As of earlier today, there were 681,889 unique downloaders worldwide, the company said.
Poland, the U.K., Canada, France, Greece and the Netherlands round out the top 10 countries where the show has been downloaded the most.
Piracy continues to be a problem for feature films, TV, music and other original content. Despite government regulatory bodies and laws, in the U.S. and abroad, content is illegally obtained through the internet.
Recently, reports indicated that "American Sniper" was the most downloaded Oscar-winning feature film, with estimated losses of more than $24 million off 1.2 million illegal downloads. Fast Company reported that the next highest illegally downloaded Oscar-winners were "The Imitation Game," with an estimated $8.1 million in losses through 405,676 downloads and "Wild," which lost $3.2 million off 162,793 illegal downloads.
Netflix would turn bad news into opportunity, according to Fansided. The company would attempt to launch its service in China, but without a partner company. It anticipated that it would have a more challenging time with regulatory approval without a Chinese presence attached, but the rewards could be great.
But if the company can succeed in cutting through the mountains of red tape, it would be No. 1 in distributing content -- including Chinese programming -- to the rest of the world, the report indicated.
